A Perpetual Halloween
by BravoExpressions
Summary: The fourth part in the holiday series following, "Independence Day," "By Thanksgiving," and "Every February." Norah, caught up in middle school and experiencing teenage angst, is blindsided when Mark's decisions upend her life and Mary and Marshall are left to deal with the fallout. T for mild language.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello, beautiful people! Has it really been seven months since we last saw each other? I cannot even wrap my head around it. It goes without saying that I have missed you all very much and deserve a sound scolding for being such a horrible reviewer while I have been away.**

 **I admit that at the close of my last story, it was the first time I was afraid I would not return. I haven't been afforded the time or, indeed, the brainwaves required to churn out another fic. I don't know how stellar this one is, but it contains some of my old favorite characters that I have not revisited in years, and I can only hope that some of you remember them as well.**

 **This is the fourth installment in my "Holiday Series," which is the only series of mine to date that takes place after the IPS series finale. All my others tend to begin somewhere in season four. But, starting with "Independence Day" and continuing through "By Thanksgiving" and "Every February," I have taken Mary and Marshall from their balcony conversation and moved them ever forward.**

 **To recap from "Every February" just in case you don't want to go back and revisit it, Jinx has passed away, Stan and Lia have returned from DC to set up camp in Albuquerque once more, with Lia taking over Jinx's studio. Mark had acquired a serious girlfriend, Jill, at the end of the last tale and had just introduced her to Norah. Mary and Marshall had gotten married at the end of "By Thanksgiving."**

 **Now, we have Norah at age thirteen and Mary's and Marshall's daughter Alice at age six. Brandi's kids, Robyn and Max, are twelve and nine, respectively, and this is where we greet them! The perils of middle school and mixed households and growing older all wrapped up in one. In keeping with the holiday theme, this one takes place at Halloween, and the 'perpetual' refers to Norah's disposition at this time in their lives (it's a stretch, but I'm bad with titles). I sincerely hope you enjoy the start!**

XXX

To Mary, the telltale signs of autumn didn't manifest themselves in the changing of the leaves on the trees, the crisper, cooler temperatures, or the absence of the sun after six in the evening. Although, that wasn't to say she didn't enjoy the break from Albuquerque's more boiling summer months, where her cheeks were forever slightly sunburned and her feet overheated inside her always-chosen pair of black boots. The fall brought many welcome changes, and Mary was not a person who usually relished much change.

But, in spite of the bursting shades of red and orange on every corner, the winds that whistled through the trees and indicated she might want to don a jacket before walking out the front door, the true signal of September and October was the onslaught of homework foisted upon her children.

For the past two years, Mary and Marshall had developed a tried-and-true routine that kept their forever-swaying ship running smoothly. With both inspector and chief back in the WITSEC office almost on a full-time basis, there was rarely any time to spare. And so, while one cooked dinner and the other assisted with any papers to come home in backpacks, it was a fairly well-oiled machine.

But, on some nights – like this one, for example – the routine became slightly more cluttered. They had to revert to Plan B in order to accommodate a fuller house. Oftentimes, when Mary's frequently-jet-setting-brother-in-law was away on business, her home was occupied by more than just Norah and Alice. Robyn and Max were apt to join the fray as well, and that meant Brandi in their midst. Certain evenings, it was actually more helpful than harmful; a credit the elder sister thought she would never be able to give the younger. This was one change, in particular, that was difficult to see as negative.

With Marshall running late from work, the two Shannon women had their work cut out for them with a houseful of four, but the chaos had become mundane for Mary. With a gentle, cool autumn breeze wafting in through the open deck door, she kept her mind on peeling potatoes while Brandi took over her husband's usual role in aiding with homework. While the taller of the two longed to supervise to ensure things were getting done properly, she knew that success was more likely to be achieved if she stuck to her job preparing dinner.

Still though, certain tidbits couldn't help reaching her ears, even as she kept her back turned, slicing skins onto newsprint in the sink.

"What does s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e spell?"

That was Alice engaging in the usual nightly readings prescribed by her first grade teacher. Mary glanced over her shoulder to see to it that someone was going to answer her where she sat on one of the barstools at the island.

"Struggle," Robyn supplied, twisting and turning in her own chair opposite, not paying the slightest bit of attention to her schoolwork.

"What's it mean?" Alice inquired further.

"You know…" Robyn paused and took a breath. "I _struggled_ against the ropes binding me to the tree lest I be washed out to sea!" she translated with a flourish.

Predictably, Alice giggled and cast her eyes back on her easy-reader, her elder cousin grinning fondly at the always-rapt-audience she had obtained in the little girl she had once yearned to feel growing in her aunt's belly.

Mary wouldn't be satisfied that they were working diligently until Robyn bent over her own homework, for Brandi was occupied with Max at the outer counter, her head buried in his bag. The girls used the opportunity while her back was turned to share a few more secrets, Robyn leaning stealthily across the table and whispering to Alice.

Twelve years old and a fairly new member of the sixth grade, Robyn was coming into her own in spectacular fashion, so much so that it was sometimes hard for Mary to believe she was once-wayward-Brandi's daughter. Since starting middle school, she had finally resigned herself to having her hair cut, just as blonde as ever. While it was still long, swinging like a curtain around her shoulders, it was nowhere near the tattered-Rapunzel-like rat's nest it had been when she was younger. By all accounts, it had been a good decision, because from everything Mary heard, her glossy locks and striking green eyes made her quite the popular entity on the sixth grade market. It seemed her theatrical, zealous nature was finally coming in handy.

"Babe, what are you supposed to be doing?" Mary called even as she reflected, sounding a little teacher-like. "I don't have to administer a pop quiz and whip out my red pen, do I?" she was able to poke fun at herself as her niece whirled around.

"Alice needed help with her reading," she insisted; the basis for her procrastination always had to do with Alice's supposed neediness. "And, I only have math and social studies, anyway…"

"Then you better get on it," Mary was not going to house these kids half the night, not if she wanted any alone-time with Marshall if he ever arrived. "These potatoes will be ready in twenty and those that aren't done get the ones with the eyes still in them…"

"Gross!" Alice squealed. "Potatoes don't have eyes!"

"Want to bet?" Mary taunted with a grin.

Both girls made faces at this, Alice's reminding her mother only semi-painfully of Jinx. Milky-skinned with her wide, oceanic eyes, her brunette curls almost as long as Robyn's stick-straight tresses, she certainly resembled her late grandmother more than any of the other children. And, in spite of her difficulty with the word 'struggle' Mary knew that her skills in school were nothing to be concerned with. In another month, she would be seven, and by all accounts she had inherited her father's brains, not that Mary was any slouch in the smarts department either.

"I have to read the story to someone anyway," the youngest Shannon chattered on. "It says so right here," she held up the plastic bag her teacher had sent home, along with the note dictating that it was best for the kids if they practiced their assigned stories out loud. "So, why can't I read to Robyn?"

"Because Robyn has her own work to do," Brandi finally mingled into the group, rapping her daughter sharply on the head with a yellow pencil. "You heard Mary. If you want dinner soon, you need to get started."

Being chastised by your own parent often did the trick, and Robyn reluctantly craned her neck over the aforementioned studies, Brandi motoring around to listen to Alice read. Max, it seemed, was taking care of himself, something he did extraordinarily well for a boy of nine.

Long and lanky, much like his Uncle Marshall, he had surpassed Alice significantly in height even though he was only two years older than she was. With his same wiry glasses and mop of sandy hair – even though it was really more brown than blonde these days – he oftentimes reminded Mary of an absentminded professor. His brilliance was a secret to all except her. While he was more than capable of managing whatever his workload was on his own, she still liked to see to it that he was given the opportunity for support, as he would be far too shy to ask for it.

"Max, what do you have tonight?" she inched as closely to the outside counter as she could manage while still being able to peel into the sink. "Nothing too taxing, I hope."

"Multiplication," he sounded dismal at the thought, wiggling into the only available stool left, away from the girls and printing his name at the top of a worksheet. "We're doing two's this week."

"Don't tell me your teacher doesn't have some corny rhyme to help you learn those facts."

"Not for two's," Max shrugged. "I guess she thinks they're too easy – no tricks."

"If you say so," Mary shook her head. "If you finish that up, you can help me with dinner," he liked to bake, and he also liked to feel busy – useful. "I wasn't planning on spoiling you guys with dessert tonight, but cookies may be in order if all we're having are baked potatoes."

Her nephew grinned at the offer, "Okay. It's only twenty problems, anyway."

"Speed of light, man," Mary encouraged, reaching over to rumple his hair, which produced another smirk.

All in all, the evening appeared to be running swimmingly. Alice was happy articulating one of her many boring stories to Brandi. Robyn, with covetous looks at the newly-acquired cell phone that was supposed to still be in her backpack, was mostly occupied. Max, glad to have something to do once he completed his math, was plugging along so quickly that his tongue was poking out the side of his mouth in his fervor. Yes, Mary thought, even without Marshall at the onset, they still operated under a very finely-tuned mechanism.

Except for the one loose wheel – likely to come clear off any day now if it wasn't screwed in tightly soon.

Norah was lounging in the living room, her backpack ten feet away by the front door, ankles crossed; pretending to be immersed in a chapter book, when in reality Mary knew she was taking in absolutely nothing. The sight, while exasperating on most nights, now produced a kind of sadness that the mother hadn't known she'd harbored for her eldest daughter until that very moment.

Unlike her more spirited cousin, Norah had been in middle school for a year already and found the confines nothing short of dull, wearisome, and detestable. While Robyn flourished under all that could be said during five minute passing periods and the ways in which she could win over seven different teachers, Norah found the perils of the seventh grade brutal and punishing. At least, Mary thought she did, but speaking to the oldest Shannon had become a bit of a war in and of itself.

The inspector still considered herself and her firstborn to be very close, as close as they ever were, but Norah was eerily reminding Mary more and more of herself with each passing day. She was extremely moody; one minute she was pleasant and agreeable, her usual witty self. The next she was nasty and short-tempered and nothing anybody said or did made any difference. Mary liked to think this was just part of being thirteen and that she would find her niche soon enough, but she could never be sure.

And, watching her sit, feigning interest in her book when the rest of the house was buzzing like bees, Mary knew before she even opened her mouth that a battle was going to wage if she goaded Norah into confessing what she was really supposed to be doing for homework.

But, she wasn't a mom for nothing, and moms, more often than not, had to play the bad guy. When you considered who her husband was, it was only fitting that she be the one to tighten the reigns. Marshall might be a bad ass, but when it came to the girls, he was a regular pussy cat.

"Norah, bring your bag over here!" Mary called over the noise of Alice reading at the top of her lungs to an audience of one; she hadn't quite learned how to use her inside voice when doing so yet. "I want to see what you've got."

Norah sighed, but at least if she was going to argue, she wasn't going to do it from across the room. Standing and dragging herself to the front door like there was lead in her feet, she retrieved her backpack, slinging it over one shoulder. Once in the kitchen, she threw her sister and cousin a scathing look that was so reminiscent of Mary that it was frightening.

"You aren't going to know anything by looking through my bag," she claimed, shoving the parcel into her mother's chest so she was forced to drop her potato peeler into the sink. "But, just so you know, I don't have any homework. I finished it at school."

"Uh-huh…" Mary grunted, lifting the backpack onto the counter and unzipping the largest pouch. "Don't they make you write down your assignments in homeroom at the end of the day?"

"Maybe…" Norah shrugged. "But, it's stupid. We're not a bunch of babies. Mrs. McCracken only checks them half the time, anyway, so it wouldn't matter if I wrote everything down or not."

Even so, Mary pulled out the planner she knew her child had buried somewhere in her bag, counting on her responsible streak to carry her through no matter how remiss her homeroom teacher was being. In spite of Norah's disdain for school, she usually still did what was expected of her. Flipping through the spiral notebook, she located the day in October they were on at present. Every column was filled in, including pages and problem numbers.

"My math's still in there, if you want to spy on that too," Norah interrupted her mother's reading with an eyebrow raised, jerking her head toward the bag. "But, I left my science at school since I finished it. I already told you that."

"Hmm…" the inspector hummed something between contempt at Norah's attitude and approval that she hadn't been lying. "Good. What were you reading, then?"

"I was reading ahead for English, but there's probably something wrong with that too."

"I never said that."

"Well, Mr. Perkins thinks there's something wrong with it. He gets pissed off every time he finds out I know what happens next…"

"Ooh!" Alice squealed from across the room, halting her storytelling with a gleeful grin on her face. "Norah said a baaaaaad word!"

"Shut up, Alice," the older sister snapped.

"You did, you did!" she continued to crow, pleased she had riled her as any pesky younger sibling was known to do. "I bet you heard that at Mark's house 'cause he says bad words all the time!"

"Not _all_ the time…" Robyn interrupted, looking somewhat impressed by Norah's daring. "Just 'ass' and 'hell.'"

"Robyn!" Brandi scolded.

"I was just explaining!"

"Hell's an _evil_ place!" Alice chimed in, looking nothing short of thrilled about all the profanity going around. "It's hot! It has fire!" where she had learned this, Mary had no idea, but she was about to find out. "I asked Jill one time after Mark said it, and that's what she told me! But, she said that's only what some people think – some people don't even _believe_ in hell!"

Mary rolled her eyes at the mention of Mark's longtime girlfriend, but this was child's play compared to Norah's reaction. She ought of have known she would pop off; Alice's chattering was always a surefire way to test her temper.

"Well, that's because Jill's an idiot just like you!"

Mary knew she couldn't let this slip, "Norah, come on…" she chastised, grabbing her by the shoulder to turn her around, trying to show rather than tell her to forget it. "Leave it alone…"

"I am _not!"_ Alice hollered, book forgotten entirely. "You're the stupid one! I heard what you said the other day – that your math teacher thinks you're dumb and that's why you got a big, fat F on that test you had!"

"If you don't shut up now, I'll _shut_ you up, Alice!"

"Norah, stop!" Mary knew that at this age she would've said the exact same thing to Brandi, but she was grown now, and knew it was unacceptable. "Alice, keep reading, you hear?" she jutted her potato peeler in the direction of her youngest as a means to help her see that she was serious. "I mean it."

But Alice, while disheartened that she had been insulted by Norah, was feeling some margin of victory that she had gotten her goat. At almost-seven and thirteen, they were more at odds than ever before, and still having to share a bedroom didn't help. Norah found her little sister to be painfully immature and insufferable, whereas Alice insisted that the older was bossy and mean. Sibling rivalry was not uncommon, and Mary still held faint hope that this phase would pass quickly. And while she had always identified with Norah more than she did Alice, she couldn't help thinking that the littler of the two often had a point. Norah could be mean, but having to put up with Alice's antics didn't do her any favors.

"Does she have to listen to everything I say?" Norah sniped, still glowering in Alice's direction. "She's such a snoop. Who cares if I said 'pissed?' You say it all the time…"

"Yes, and the example I've set for you is stunning," Mary dripped with sarcasm, still trying to get her child to turn around and ignore Alice. "But, I'm more interested in that last bit."

"What?"

"Did you fail a math test?"

"No!" Norah raised her voice, her dark brown eyes looking dreary as well as anxious. "You don't even care that she eavesdropped – all you care about are the lies she's telling!"

"Norah," Mary lowered her tone, trying to stay calm and not attract the attention of anyone else in the vicinity. "Cool out, all right? I can talk to Alice about minding her own business; God knows I don't like people poking into mine…"

The other huffed, but said nothing.

"But, you're smart; you do well in math," she murmured, forgetting her potatoes entirely. "Are you having trouble? Do you need help…?"

"I _didn't_ fail!" she bleated. "I was talking to Robyn on the phone and what I _said_ was that Mr. Lacey hated me so much that he'd probably fail me no matter what! That's what Alice heard!"

"Okay…"

"We haven't had a test in, like, a month!" she prattled on, pleading her case. "And I got an A on the last one!"

"Well, fine. But, you think the teacher doesn't like you?"

"None of my teachers like me."

"Why is that?"

Mary couldn't imagine this was true, but she was willing to give Norah the opportunity to vent while she searched the back pocket of her backpack for anything she might've missed. There was something lumpy hiding in the rear pouch, and when she unzipped it, she was met with a rancid, rotting smell that almost made her throw up right where she stood. Forgetting all about her question, she reacted instantly, wrinkling her nose, her disgust spewing out her mouth before she could stop herself.

"What in the world have you been keeping in here?!" her goal was not to sound angry, but the stench of moldy socks was so strong she couldn't stop herself. "Oh, Jesus…" with some trepidation, she reached inside and pulled out a wad of fabric while Norah twitched her nose, but merely hunched her shoulders. "What is this?!"

"My gym clothes."

So they were. Mary recognized the royal blue mesh shorts and the grey T-shirt with Norah's school name spelled across the chest, her own name written in marker on a strip below the graphic of her mascot. It was as if someone had rolled them in a puddle of perspiration and left them out in the sun to dry.

"Christ almighty…how long have these been in your locker?" she wanted to know, tossing them to the counter. "When was the last time you brought them home to be washed?"

"I don't know," Norah spoke as if she didn't especially care. "Awhile, I guess…"

But, when Mary had thrown them aside, she noticed a half-slip of notebook paper safety-pinned to the shirt with squiggly writing on the lines. Looking skeptically at her daughter, who had turned suddenly evasive, she yanked the writings free, reading with her eyebrows narrowed.

When she had finished, her patience with her child had definitely thinned. She'd wanted to make a solid stab at understanding, knowing that the hazards of middle school could put anyone in a perpetually bad mood, but this was getting ridiculous.

"Your gym teacher said she docked your grade because she told you three times in the last two weeks to bring these home and you didn't do it," waving the evidence in her face. "Norah, seriously? This is gym; nobody fails gym…"

"I'm not _failing…"_

But, the use of this phrase brought Alice back into the mix, and at a most inopportune time.

"You're failing PE?!" she squawked in ecstasy. "Ha-ha!"

"Alice, enough!" Mary snapped. "Either get to work or I'm sending you to work in your room!"

"I just went from an A to B; it's not like…"

"I can't _wait_ until I have PE again!" Robyn contributed out of nowhere. "You don't get to take it until seventh grade in middle school, and…"

"I _love_ PE!" Alice ignored everyone, cutting Robyn off. "We have these scooters we get to play on, and…!"

"There aren't any _scooters_ in middle school, nimrod!" Norah barreled on. "You don't know anything!"

"I'm smart enough to get an A in PE!"

"Guys, come on…!"

Mary had about had it with all of them, knowing that things always got a little discombobulated without Marshall, but fortunately on this occasion, he was there to save the day. With the click of the locks being undone and the squeak of the front door, he appeared, cutting the children's words apart with his presence alone. He brought cheerfulness even after a long day at the office and a sense of tranquility that Mary and Brandi never seemed able to achieve.

"Hello, all!" he bellowed, dropping his keys and sunglasses onto the end table. "So sorry I am late!"

"Hi daddy!" Alice squealed.

"Hello to you too, sugar!"

"Hi Marshall!" Robyn threw in. "Did you bring the bacon for the potatoes?"

"I surely did!"

The shift in dynamics gave Norah a chance to escape. Avoiding her smelly gym clothes and the taunts of her sister, she slipped away from Mary at once. While the mother opened her mouth to tell her to get back where she'd been so they could discuss her defiance in PE, she changed her mind at the last minute. Marshall was one of the few people who could make her smile these days, and she was hard-pressed to deny her that.

In any case, her focus was distracted when Max appeared as though from thin air, looking timid and shy. He hated tension and even though the arguing was routine, he still wanted to stay out of the fray.

"I finished," he whispered in a small voice.

"Your math? Already?" Mary asked.

"Mmm hmm."

"All right, um…" glad for the assistance, she glanced into the sink and retrieved the potato she had dropped earlier. "Do you know how to peel potatoes?"

"Yep."

"You sure? You're not gonna cut yourself, are you?"

"No. Mom showed me once."

"Okay…"

Sometimes, Mary didn't know what she would do without Max. His ability to keep his head down and stay quiet amongst the turmoil created by the girls was a gift. Sometimes, it might hold him back, but it was a blessing now that he was growing up to be able to march to the beat of his own drum.

Meanwhile, Norah had accosted Marshall at the door, and the man was surprised to be greeted before he'd even taken off his suit jacket, but that was Norah these days. When she spun, she came to him, and while he often felt badly for Mary in these circumstances, he knew she wanted Norah to be happy – that was what was most important.

"Hey, champ. What's up?"

He patted her shiny blonde hair, tied back in a ponytail and falling in wisps down her neck. Like Robyn, hers was much shorter than it had been when they were young, barely reaching her shoulders when it was not contained by a rubber band.

"How was school?" Marshall prodded when she didn't say anything, although he did index her moving closer to him.

"Same as always…"

His eyes caught a novel lying open on the couch when he swung his jacket over the back and saw the opportunity for conversation.

"What's the story?" he indicated the book. "An enthralling saga, I hope."

"It's 'Johnny Tremain,'" she disclosed. "Parts of it are boring, but I like some of it if I can understand it…"

"Well, how about after dinner you can show me where you're at and we can talk about it?"

No matter how nerdy, no matter how much of a bookworm it made her, there were few things Norah liked better these days than delving into a good book with Marshall. It reminded her of days of old, before locker rooms and even before baby sisters, when she lay snuggled under the covers with a bedtime story, her mother and the man who used to only be her mother's boyfriend tucking her in. It was a sense of safety it was hard to recapture as the years raced by.

"You'll have time to do that?" Norah wanted to make sure.

"You know me," Marshall grinned and tried to keep the smile on his face as he glanced up and saw Mary watching them from her post in the kitchen. "I always have time for you, gorgeous."

XXX

 **A/N: We have to start somewhere! I am so thrilled to be back and am crossing my fingers I have some loyal readers that are still interested in the wonderful IPS which will always have left the airwaves too soon. I would love to hear your thoughts on this first chapter!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I am flattered by those of you who have been kind enough to review already. I always worry that IPS is really losing its fandom; especially the longer it's been off the air (three years this month!) It's nice to know there are still at least a few that still love it as much as I do.**

XXX

Like he did every evening, rain or shine, come hell or high water, Marshall managed to cast a blanket of harmony over a house that was almost always at its breaking point without him. Seemingly without even trying, he could put out every fire or push those that required more attention to the backburner until he and Mary had the chance to confront those demons more thoroughly.

He would listen to Alice read with one ear and point out Max's math errors with both eyes, and yet was still always attentive enough to correct his daughter if she stumbled over certain words. Like a cat burglar, he could steal Robyn's cell phone so that she never even missed it, guaranteeing that she would get her work done before gabbing it up with her friends. Most importantly, he pushed Norah delicately into the rest of the group, urging her to interact and not behave so sullenly. Although she was the biggest challenge these days, he had more success than any other adult in her life in getting her to open up.

And, on this particularly wild Monday night in late October, he was the one to send both girls to bed while Mary was holed up in the bedroom with paperwork from the office. Sprawled on her belly, using one of Norah's textbooks as a surface while she signed her name and checked boxes on each and every form, it seemed from the other side of the door that goodnights were going relatively smoothly. Nothing resembling an explosion sounded from beyond the hatch, and when Marshall slipped through the crack she knew he had triumphed.

With a grin, he exercised a literal spring in his step and bounded onto the bed like a little boy, flopping into position right beside his wife so they were side-by-side at the end of the mattress.

"Hey there, studious…"

Mary smirked at his calling her as such, as it didn't have everything to do with her poring over WITSEC documents. Six months ago, after about two years of her eyes growing blurry when she tried to read anything up close, she had resigned herself to getting a pair of reading glasses. While she had shuddered at the thought of how geriatric she might appear with a pair of frames, Marshall had found the addition nothing short of sensual. He turned giddy every time he saw her with them on, and now was no exception.

"Two dorks in a pod, that's what we are, right?" she quipped, leaning in when she saw him preparing to give her a quick kiss. "Are the girls in bed?"

Marshall sighed briefly, but would not let his good spirits be dampened.

"For now," he decided with a nod. "Norah has her curtain closed, at any rate, so she shouldn't bother Alice."

Both of them knew it was asking a lot for a thirteen year old to share a bedroom with a first grader; Mary and Marshall had tried to give Norah some semblance of privacy, but it was makeshift, at best. There was no way to add on to the back of the house with the kitchen located there, and anything on the sides ran into the neighboring homes. As it was a larger ranch style with no second floor, their only option was to extend what had long ago been the guest room. Alice slept in the portion that she and Norah had once shared, they'd had builders knock out the back wall, and Norah occupied the new half jutting out into the side yard.

All it had really created was a larger room, and with the dividing wall still going up, the girls were forced to use a curtain nailed into the ceiling to separate them. It was not ideal, especially since you had to pass through Alice's room to get to Norah's new one, but it was the best they could do. Mary often wondered if it wouldn't have been more intelligent just to have moved to a newer, bigger house, but it was water under the bridge now.

"I'm not trying to send her to bed at the same time as a six-year-old like she thinks I am…" Mary voiced as she thought about all this. "But, if she doesn't get in there early then she wakes up Alice when we do make her turn in."

"I know," Marshall replied, lounging onto his back and gazing up at the ceiling. "She gets that. At least, I think she does, even if she doesn't say so."

"Yeah, there's a lot she's not saying lately," Mary turned back to her files, making sure she had not accidentally placed her signature on a line meant for a witness. "I am such a filthy hypocrite, I swear…"

"How's that?" the man wouldn't take his eyes off the roof, savoring the feel of the soft covers beneath his back. "Hypocrisy can be characterized as a double standard, bordering on insincerity…"

"Do definitions just spill out of you when you have nothing constructive to say?" his wife mused, but without any malice, her framed eyes still on her work. "If I didn't know what a 'hypocrite' was, then I wouldn't have used the word…"

"I have enough faith in your intelligence that I would assume your knowledge of such things is sound…"

"So, am I allowed to continue?"

"Please do."

Mary sighed, but couldn't help grinning at the fact that they still went around the bend more often than was necessary all these years later. It was part of their repartee and rhythm; they bantered without thinking twice, without ever considering how much time it wasted. Except, there had come a point when Mary didn't consider the minutes squandered. It was satisfying to elongate things – the more she received of Marshall, the better, and this was coming from a woman whose patience used to amount to next-to-nothing.

"I shouldn't get so hung up on Norah," she finally explained, feeling Marshall roll over onto his stomach, his head now at her feet. "When I was thirteen, I was just as bad or worse."

"She is at a tough age," the taller echoed, Mary feeling his hands on her toes, massaging them, which was a definite distracter from her office duties. "Middle school is pretty hit-and-miss. You have the Norahs – aimless, wandering, doing everything they can to just get through the day and find out who they are by the end of it. And then you have the Robyns – lit up by that little bit of independence, savoring the idea of a new friend a minute, never once missing the old."

It was a moment before Mary was able to respond to his postulation, as his rubdown was putting her into a kind of trance. His hands were incredibly skilled at relieving her sore feet, even though he'd worked far more hours than she had this day. There had been a time when being catered to would have seemed nothing short of repulsive to her. She'd come a long way.

"But, Norah's a pro when it comes to independence," she bounced off his suggestion about both ends of the spectrum. "Always has been. This is a kid who ran off when she was barely six without a second thought."

"Well, people change as they grow up," Marshall said it as though it were perfectly natural and not at all scary. "She may be seeking more companionship than she used to be and isn't sure how to achieve it…"

"But, she's always had friends," the woman put her pen down, more focused on listening than on completing her papers now. "Maybe not close friends, but that was the way she wanted it; she's not starving for attention the way that Robyn is."

She knew this was an unfair statement to make about her niece, who seemed to have matured almost overnight. While she still possessed many of her diva qualities from childhood, they had molded themselves into something more desirable now that she was twelve – social skills, the ability to be humorous, and thirst for performance, which were all popular qualities at the middle school level.

"Yes, but this is when people start to notice differences rather than similarities," Marshall was still delicately presenting his notions, hands running over her feet with ease. "That can be jarring. In elementary school, it's all about community and acceptance. Not so once you move on."

"I guess…" the blonde supposed he was right; he usually was. "I just wish I knew if that was really her problem. She doesn't talk to me like she used to…"

"Well, join the club. She doesn't tell me anything either."

At this, Mary flipped over and peered out of the top of her glasses at her husband, which she was well aware made her look sassy and disbelieving. The image she received in return was half-fuzzy, half-clear, which was a fairly good representation of her life right now.

"You are such a liar," she accused. "She talks to you. I see her. In fact, I _know_ she talks to you because that means she doesn't have to talk to me."

"Well, I stand corrected, but only in part," Marshall conceded minimally. "She speaks to me, yes, but not about anything significant. She's not spilling her secrets or anything so stealthy."

"That's still more than I get."

"She'll say more when she has more to say," this was not exactly profound, but it gave Mary some margin of perspective. "She's probably confused herself – it's a confusing time. Like you said, you remember what it's like to be thirteen. Simplicity is behind you and you're torn between embracing your inevitable development or…"

"You can stop right there," Mary held up a hand to quiet him. "I don't need to be thinking about Norah and any kind of 'development.' At least not tonight…"

"Ignoring it isn't going to make it go away," few men would be able to be so casual about the hormones involved in an adolescent girl. "And, if you shy away from it, Norah is going to feel embarrassed and it's only going to cause more problems…"

"I'm not ignoring anything; I've talked to her. She knows the ins and outs…"

"Recently?"

"I don't know; a few months ago I brought it up again, but she said she didn't want to get into it, so I wasn't going to make her…"

"Maybe it's time to try again."

"Marshall, nobody wants to hash out the particulars of puberty," she shook her head derisively. "If she needs anything, then she'll come to me. I'm her mom."

Deep down, Mary had always believed that, and she hoped it was still true. She couldn't say that she looked forward to the eventual conversations with Norah about her maturing physique which came with all sorts of bodily changes very few girls welcomed. When she'd been Norah's age, she had never understood the hunger that had possessed many of her peers when it came to growth spurts, both inside and out. She'd learned from Jinx long before she was ready about what to expect and so by the time the whole messy ordeal came to pass it had seemed ordinary. Until recently, Norah had been so relaxed about everything that her mother assumed she would take this the same way.

But, here was Marshall, prepared to tell her that she might be mistaken.

"This is tricky business, Mare. It's new to me too. But, I think we need to make an effort to be open with Norah about these things without being overbearing…"

But, before he could expound upon his philosophy, there was a tentative knock on the door that caused Mary to glance away from her husband to see who had come to call. The visitor didn't wait to be asked inside, and in seconds Alice appeared wearing pink plaid pants and a floppy old dance T-shirt of Robyn's.

"Can we help you, miss?" Marshall proposed, blinking coyly and acting as though he and Mary hadn't been discussing anything covert. "Was that some _other_ little girl I tucked in just ten minutes ago? Because, _that_ little girl obviously knows she should still be in bed…"

All his little routine earned him was a grin from his spoiled daughter, who did not look the least bit tired. She also had the distinct appearance of someone who knew she would not been in trouble once those on the other side knew the whole story.

"Norah's on the phone," she tattled, sticking a hand on her hip. "I heard her talking. How am I supposed to sleep if she won't be quiet?"

"Hmm…" Marshall hummed thoughtfully, Mary looking suspicious. "Who's she talking to?"

"I don't know," Alice shrugged. "But, I heard her say something about boys," she inclined her eyebrows, as the male species was almost taboo among the first grade, reserved for grown-up girls like her big sister.

No matter how tired he might be, Marshall took the bait and ran with it – literally. Springing off the bed, he dashed at Alice, waving his arms and playing the complete fool he was in front of his girls.

"Not _boys!"_ he moaned as though there could be nothing worse in the world. "Oh, the humanity! Oh, the horror!" and in one fell swoop, he scooped Alice off the ground and had flipped her upside-down before she knew what had hit her. "I shall protect you from the menace that is boys! Fear not!"

Alice giggled feverishly, all the blood rushing to her face from where she hung with her head three feet off the ground. Mary slipped her glasses off and folded them onto the bed, leaning with her chin in her hand to watch the show. Although she always enjoyed seeing her husband dote on Alice, she couldn't help wondering how Norah would feel if she knew her little sister was being catered to after she'd told on her.

"You're a boy, daddy!" Alice reminded him breathlessly, flailing like a cat, but Marshall hung on with ease. "You like girls and you kiss mommy and it's gross!"

She said this on purpose, the mother knew, purely to allow her father to engage in more fun and games refuting her theory.

"Somewhere in the far-far distant future you're going to like kissing boys too," Marshall proclaimed. "But, if it makes you feel any better, I don't think that's what Norah has in mind, even if that's what she's talking about."

With another giggle, "If you kiss boys before you're a grown up, does that mean you go to hell?"

The jig was up. Mary cringed, knowing she had forgotten to tell Marshall about Alice's all-too prominent obsession with swearwords. It was true she heard far too many of them, but with Norah they had been lucky. When she'd been Alice's age, she had never expressed any interest in using the terms her mother and father did. But, the youngest was different. She was prone to wanting to shock and awe people, and asking about hell was a definite way to do it.

Marshall flipped his daughter right-side up so that he was holding her properly in his arms, and even though she was still grinning, he was not.

"I don't want to hear you using words like that," it wasn't often that Marshall was serious, but he was making an exception. "It's not appropriate. And we never talk about people going to hell – not ever."

"So, how come Norah gets to say stuff like that?"

"Worry about yourself," Mary interjected, sitting up and striding over to the duo. "The rules for you and the rules for Norah are different. You're different people."

While Mary wasn't wild about her eldest child cursing left, right, and center, there was no denying she was getting older, and therefore the use of such phrases became more commonplace. And, she really wasn't one to talk. She and Mark, in particular, had been throwing 'damn' and 'ass' around since their daughter had been an infant.

"Well, I want to know what hell is," Alice was undeterred. "You guys say it all the time, but it doesn't make sense when you say it. If it's really a bad-bad place where you go if you've been naughty, then what's it mean when people say, 'What the hell?'"

This was a little perplexing, Mary thought, but Marshall had-had enough.

"As far as you're concerned, it doesn't mean anything," he insisted. "I don't want you thinking that anybody anywhere is going to hell – certainly nobody around here is. You understand?"

"Not really."

"We'll talk about it another time," Mary called a halt to the discussion for the time being. "In the meantime, I don't want to hear it come out your mouth. It's time for bed. You've had your fun."

"How am I supposed to sleep if Norah won't get off the phone?!" the brunette exclaimed, throwing up her hands. "It's too loud!"

On that note, Marshall sent his wife a significant nod, which indicated he would do the honors of shutting down his step-daughter's nighttime chatting so Alice would get some rest. She could be a virtual livewire when she put her mind to it, and now was the time to quiet her or they were going to be up all night. Shifting the little girl higher into his arms, he started for the door, wondering just what sort of temperament Norah would adopt when he confiscated the phone.

"You sure you don't want me to go?" his favorite inspector called, used to being the bad cop.

"You wrangled the troops earlier," Marshall called over his shoulder. "It's my turn."

Lucky to be married to someone so logical, the blonde smiled and watched him disappear down the hall. Once he was gone, she crawled to the head of the bed and deposited her glasses on the end table to ensure they wouldn't be broken lying on the mattress. Their permanent place was beside the framed photograph of her and Jinx that Marshall had given her the Valentine's Day immediately after she'd died.

Looking at the print now, her mother glowing in checkered yellow, and the young Mary much the same, she couldn't resist seeing Norah beneath the glass. She and Mary did look remarkably alike, after all. But, the Norah-slash-Mary she saw within was a much happier version. The woman remembered trips to the swimming pool and tee ball games and a whirling dervish Robyn with her ballerina bun piled high on top of her head. How those years had flown by so quickly, Mary would never know, and she found herself experiencing an odd pang of longing for Jinx that she didn't feel nearly as much as she used to.

Her mother might not have been a prize during Mary's adolescence, but she did have some semblance of practice dealing with teenagers. Suddenly, the daughter wished she could ask her what she would do about the perpetually put-out, surly Norah.

Meanwhile, in the hall, Norah herself must've known that her time on the phone was limited, because she stalked through the doorway and held out the cordless the minute Marshall came through with Alice.

"I'm done," she said shortly, letting go once she felt the chief take the phone. And then, to Alice, "Snitch."

"What?" Alice frowned, unfamiliar with the term. "What's that? What'd she call me?" looking to Marshall for help. "What's she mean? It's not nice, is it…?"

"Never mind," Marshall interjected, deciding to let this one go. "Come on…" he slipped Alice to the floor and nudged her through the open doorway. "Back in bed. Enough stalling."

"You forgot my kiss," the little one huffed, as though she simply couldn't manage or get through the night without one.

"I gave you one earlier," the dad proclaimed as Norah rolled her eyes. "That counts, no?"

"No!" Alice was stubborn, like her mother. "I need another!"

"All right, I suppose I can manage that…"

Craning his neck almost completely down to the floor so that he resembled an ostrich, he laid a fluttering, gentle kiss on Alice's nose, which made her cheeks turn pink at all the attention.

"That should suffice, sugar," using her tried-and-true nickname. "Now, scoot."

And he patted her behind for good measure, sending her skipping off into the darkness, vaulting into her single bed. The bunk beds they had owned in the girls' youth had long since been sold, and even though Marshall knew that Norah was still displeased she had to divide up any room space with her sister, the curtain and lack of furniture sharing did help.

"I'll go in a minute," the blonde stated before Marshall could order her off to sleep as well. "I just need to go to the bathroom."

"Hang on…" he reached out and touched her shoulder, stopping her from going too far, and she halted, skepticism dancing somewhere between her eyebrows. "When you're done come on out to the kitchen," he was acting on a whim, no doubt borne out of his discussion with Mary. "It's still early; we can chat."

Even though Marshall was preferable to most everyone else, Norah did not look particularly delighted at his suggestion, but she nodded and went on her way without complaint. Her face, so strikingly like Mary's, was so often rooted in a glower these days and while he wasn't going to broach anything so intimate this evening, a barometer of her current disposition could tell him plenty.

He just found himself wondering at what moment, exactly, children ceased being children and found themselves caught in the continuous tailspin between youth and adult. Mary had been stuck in that vortex from the age of seven until who knew when. It seemed Norah, at thirteen, was going to remain in limbo as long as they let her – at least until hands pulling from all sides dragged her safely back to the shore.

XXX

 **A/N: I've said it before and I'll say it again – I'd give anything for my own Marshall Mann. ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hopefully this chapter is enjoyed – it has lots of Marshall!**

XXX

Standing at the island and sampling one of the cookies Mary had somehow found time to make earlier in the evening, Marshall heard the toilet flush in due time, and hoped Norah wouldn't bail on him if he wasn't there to force her into a conversation. Fortunately, he needn't have worried. Within seconds, she reappeared, shuffling along in a baggy green hooded sweatshirt and pants that were fast-becoming too short in the leg. Old and surely not as warm these days due to how many times they'd been washed, the grey sweatpants were gathered at the ankle and if Norah hadn't been wearing socks, Marshall knew he would've caught a glimpse of bare skin.

Because he saw her every day, he didn't notice that she was growing taller, but this development clearly meant that she was. But, he knew better than to suggest a new pair of bottoms. Norah had never been a fashion icon and preferred her clothes comfy and casual; this was one thing that hadn't altered with the progression of time.

"What?" her greeting was short, even as she lifted herself into a barstool and eyed the cookies. "Mom probably squealed on me and is gonna make you punish me."

"Uh…punish you for what?" Marshall was genuinely lost, and his ignorance made Norah's face fall because she'd just given herself away for no reason at all. "If she hasn't told me, then she must not think it's too big of a deal."

"Well, it isn't," she agreed. "I got in trouble in PE for forgetting to bring my clothes home."

"Ah, yes…" he droned, biting a corner off the second of his treats. "I thought I smelled something, ah… _interesting_ in the laundry room."

"I don't know why she freaked out," the girl shrugged, drumming her fingers absently, knowing even as she spoke that she was exaggerating Mary's reaction. "If I bring them back clean tomorrow, then my grade goes back up, so it doesn't even matter…"

"If a solution has been scouted, then I see no issue," Marshall was as light and breezy as he ever was, pushing the plate of cookies Norah's direction. "Have one. Have two, but don't tell your sister," he winked. "Seems mom made a batch too many."

"You know Max actually made them, right? He's gonna be on one of those cooking shows one day."

"Chef Alpert," the man mused dreamily. "It does have a nice ring to it."

Norah snorted, but said nothing else, and took a chocolate chip without waiting to be told twice. For a few minutes, they ate in contented silence, Marshall helping himself to more than his fair share, but he hadn't gotten a good taste at dinner earlier. Surprising him, Norah was the first to speak after several moments of nothing but crunching and chewing.

"So, if mom didn't send you out here to yell at me, then what did you want to talk about?"

"My mind might not be as sharp as it used to be what with my old age…" a joke, for he knew he and Mary were older than most of Norah's friend's parents, something she usually didn't hesitate to point out. "But, I don't think I make a regular habit of 'yelling' at you."

She obviously wasn't interested in delving into specifics, "You know what I mean," she assumed. "Mom makes you come to me because she thinks you can get me to do what she can't. But, if this wasn't about that, then what's going on?"

"Well…" Marshall swallowed a particularly large bite and went on. "I admit I was a trifle curious as to who was on the phone," this made Norah avert her gaze, a sure sign that she had something to hide. "I've known you an awful long time, champ, and you never struck me as the overly chatty type."

What he meant was that she covered all her bases when she had something to contribute and left it at that. While he knew preteen girls could be prone to jabbering away even after they'd been in school with their companions all day, Norah wasn't most girls. That was why her behavior read as peculiar.

"I'm not looking to pry, Norah, but you have to admit it is unusual for you."

With her eyes on the countertop, "If Alice hadn't squealed you never would've known anyway…" she muttered in a low voice. "I never get a moment alone anymore."

Instead of being nosy – because it was apparent that this was one of the child's pet peeves as of late – Marshall latched onto another statement, minor as it might seem.

"I know it'll be tough until the wall goes up," referring to the construction while simultaneously sympathizing with her plight. "If you want, your mom and I can make arrangements so you can stay with your dad a little more if you'd like some time in your own space; you have your own room there," this much was obvious, what with her being Mark's only child. "We'd miss you around here, of course, but if it would help…"

"No," Norah interjected sharply, as if she didn't even have to think twice about it. "Three days a week is enough – _more_ than enough," she emphasized. "Jill's there all the time; I wouldn't call that private."

Marshall couldn't help being slightly perplexed, "You like Jill, though. Don't you?"

She'd never said otherwise when it came to Mark's girlfriend – his girlfriend of nearly three years now. And, that was to be expected. Jill was pleasant and enjoyable to be around, not at all overbearing; even Mary had made nice with her fairly well, and that was saying something. He knew that the happy couple had yet to cohabitate and was inclined to believe they were waiting until Norah perked up a little, because springing Jill's everlasting presence on her at this point in time would be a death wish.

And, the seventh grader's next words proved Marshall's theory wholeheartedly.

"Just because I like her doesn't mean I want her around all the time. Dad acts dumb in front of her, like he's in high school or something."

"Well, love does strange things to people. You'll find that out one day."

"Come on, Marshall," she moaned, accidentally spewing a few crumbs of cookie onto the counter. "You don't think I get enough flack from Alice about boys? It's like she thinks I'm going out every night in secret…"

"Big Al does enjoy romanticizing things," Marshall conceded. "But, you know that in her world the boys have the undesirable cooties…"

"Not just in hers," she grumbled offhandedly, her eyes swiveling downward once more.

This was telling to Marshall, who concentrated on finishing his before-bedtime-snack so he wouldn't immediately bombard Norah with inquires about her and the opposite sex. But, the way she was drawing rings with her finger and choosing not to elaborate said to him that she might actually want him to give her a little nudge. Opening up of her own volition was a thing of the past, but with a little help there was no telling what she might reveal.

Swallowing slowly, "I guess you're not wild about boys yourself then, huh?"

"I don't know," Norah shrugged. "Not _all_ boys are bad. But, did you know that some of the eighth graders already make out in the hallway between classes, like we're already in high school or married or something?"

"Heavy…"

"And, practically _everybody_ wants a boyfriend. Especially Robyn – not that she'd have any trouble finding one."

Marshall couldn't decide if Norah sounded more jealous than disdainful upon disclosing this bit of information, but it didn't surprise him in the least. The prospect of a relationship was new and intoxicating to someone like Robyn, but it was plain that Norah, even though she was older, did not feel the same way.

"That's who was on the phone, you know," she finally gave up her secret before her step-father could continue. "Robyn."

"Hmm…" he hummed, more intrigued by this than anything so far. "You just saw her a little bit ago, no? Something you needed to talk about that couldn't wait until tomorrow?"

Again, Norah could only hunch her shoulders indifferently, paying a great deal of attention to her cookie, but she didn't seem to be tasting it. She and her cousin had never been what Marshall would call close; they'd gotten along well enough all their lives, but Robyn – despite the five year age difference – had always been more partial to Alice. Their more feminine natures and desire for presentation was what had brought them together. Now, though, when Norah and Robyn were more dissimilar than ever, there seemed to be something tethering them as one.

"Did you have something you needed to tell her earlier that you forgot about?" he pushed, eager for more, especially when she wouldn't respond. "Something at school? An assignment?" this was feeble at best, as they weren't in any of the same classes.

Still, she remained mum, weighing her options, keeping everything in the vault for as long as humanly possible. Marshall was wracking his brain trying to figure out what on earth she found so covert, but then he remembered his recent conversation with his wife about the perils of womanhood. Might it have something to do with that?

"Norah…" he whispered, abandoning the treats all together, peering low to catch her eyes where she refused to meet his. "Come on, champ. There's nothing you can't tell me. As long as it isn't dangerous, I'll keep it between us – I won't even tell mom if you don't want me to."

"You tell mom everything," she finally spoke up to discredit his promise. "And…I don't care if mom knows, anyway."

"So, then?"

It was another moment or two before Norah decided to spill, but Marshall's blue eyes were a surefire way to get anybody to unburden themselves. His everlasting patience and understanding meant that you couldn't help trusting him, and this girl had trusted him implicitly for thirteen years.

"Robyn just…" she sighed, but once she started there was no point in stopping. "She just… _knows_ things, you know?"

"Like what?"

"Just… _everything_ ," typical seventh grader, using one word to sum up an entire plethora of issues; succinct and to the point. "Who likes who, who's a loser, who's popular, who's been with someone, who gets detention all the time and who gets out of it because the teacher likes them better than they like somebody else…"

"That _does_ sound like everything," Marshall acknowledged. "It would seem Robyn is pretty dialed in."

What it actually seemed like was that Robyn was a shameless gossip, but sometimes that couldn't be helped when you were caught in the web of drama that was middle school. You either engaged in it, or you got hung out to dry, and you could bet that Brandi's daughter wouldn't be caught dead sitting idly by while secrets were swapped.

"I mean, I know it's not right to talk about people behind their backs…" this moment of humanity touched Marshall, and it reminded him of the Norah of old. "That it's not nice and stuff…but it's better to know than not. You know what I mean?"

"Perhaps…" Marshall wanted to make sure. "What is it that you are so curious about?"

Norah answered as though it were obvious, "What people are saying about _me._ "

Because it was apparent she expected the man to have realized this already, he did his best not to let his surprise show on his face. Certainly, if students were telling stories about Norah, then that would explain a lot of her brooding attitude. But, she'd never mentioned that she even suspected her peers had anything less than flattering to say about her. Were he and Mary denser than they'd realized?

"Why…do you think people would be talking about you?" he decided the only way to get his question answered was to ask it. "Is someone bullying you?"

The thought alone made Marshall angry, but she refuted his theory with a scoff and a wag of her head.

"Do you have to call it 'bullying,' Marshall?" she requested derisively. "That's what everybody calls it now, and it sounds stupid. Why can't we just call it picking on somebody?"

"The term 'bullying' has certainly picked up speed in the past few years," the chief admitted, unexpectedly proud of Norah's practicality where this matter was concerned. "Are people picking on you, then?"

"No."

But, her reply was almost on top of his query, which told Marshall that it was not likely she was being truthful. He raised his eyebrows in incredulity, taking into account that she had just wanted to shut him up, that she was lying. Mary, too, responded quickly when she wished to avoid a subject, to stop the momentum before it could truly rev up.

"Are you sure?" he prodded. "Because mom and I can speak to somebody; nobody has the right to…"

"Marshall, nobody's picking on me," but, the way she whined also gave her away; she was begging for him not to stand up for her, lest they make the situation – whatever it was – worse. "But, if I don't keep up with what's going on with everybody then I'm going to look like an idiot. Robyn knows all that stuff."

"Well, just to play devil's advocate," Marshall wasn't going to let this go so easily. "Let's say people _were_ sticking it to you. What would they have to say? You're a cool kid; there's nothing nerdy about you…"

She seemed slightly exasperated by the compliment, but she did smile.

"You have to say that. You're my dad."

If she was trying to distract him on purpose, she had done a spectacular job. Never, not once, had she ever referred to him with that title. Was it a mistake, or deliberate? And either way, it had been pulled from her subconscious somehow, and Marshall, from the very beginning, had never intended to take anyone's place. He was very close with her real father, and had no notions about usurping him.

Her face was perfectly impassive, which said to him that she saw no problem with her slip-up, if that was what it had been.

"Norah, I'm not your dad," and still, Marshall needed to nip this in the bud. "Where did that come from?"

"Well, whatever. You practically are – I'm not gonna start calling you that, or anything," she must've caught sight of his slightly panicked face. "But, you've been here my whole life. You and dad are like the same thing now."

This took Marshall back to a day long before this one, when a much smaller and more tearstained Norah had been held aloft in his arms, and declared with fierce passion that she loved him and Mary and Mark 'the same.' It appeared that this held true, even seven long years after the fact, and he couldn't help being slightly moved by her view of him. He just hoped Mark wasn't being knocked lower on the totem pole as a result.

"Be that as it may…" he decided he would skip over this new development for the time being. "You've never exactly had trouble making friends. Do you have any reason to believe you're the hot topic around the lockers?"

"It's been a _long_ time since you were in middle school, Marshall," reminding him that he was old produced a smirk. "Nobody is safe. If you do something that everybody else thinks is, like…super moronic, then they're never going to let you forget it."

"In spite of my distance from my seventh grade year, I do seem to remember that particular facet of life before high school."

It might've been that she was glad he was taking her seriously, that he recognized life in the trenches where she currently resided was an uphill climb, because she abandoned the task of getting him 'in the know.' Something else must've occurred to her judging by what he'd just said, or else she didn't wish to be grilled any longer. Both were very real possibilities.

"Were you popular when you were my age?"

For some odd reason, this question struck Marshall as funny, although he knew it would be a mistake to laugh. Because Norah looked and acted so much like Mary, he often expected similar phrases to come out her mouth. But, Mary would never ask something that Norah had just articulated, mainly because she would've already come to the conclusion on her own. She would've decided he'd been Doofus Supreme, complete with pocket protectors and glasses obscuring his entire face – just the target getting stuffed into lockers, every middle-schooler's worst nightmare.

Mary had found her husband's quirky eccentricities to be endearing as the years had slipped by, but that didn't mean she didn't still consider him a colossal geek. But, if there was anything Norah felt differently about, it was this. She thought Marshall was nothing short of hip. She always had.

"Well-liked, I would say, but certainly not popular," he finally said, not wanting to give himself too much credit. "I think that's the best any of us can hope for during that period of our lives. Some of us are luckier. Robyn, for example," he smiled.

"What about mom?"

"What do you mean, what about mom?"

"Was she popular, or whatever?"

Why Norah thought he would have insight into this, he wasn't sure, but since she'd asked, he might as well give his opinion and the facts as he knew them.

"Well, I don't know for sure, but you know that she lived a different existence from you or I," he reminded the girl, although he didn't really believe she'd forgotten. "By the time she was thirteen, she had her work cut out for her taking care of Jinx and Brandi with her dad gone."

"But, if there was a kid in my grade that was that responsible, I'd think they were pretty cool. People didn't think that about mom?"

This was proof of Norah's good heart, as well as her devotion to her mother, but Marshall had to shake his head.

"Few are as accepting as you," he claimed sadly. "Sometimes those who are so unlike us invoke fear or uncertainty. I don't imagine mom had a lot of friends. She was embarrassed about the way she grew up and she didn't want anyone to witness it. I'd say she kept people at arm's length most of the time."

"Like she did until she met you," Norah concluded with a knowing grin.

"Not even then," Marshall smirked back. "Took me the better part of a decade to win her over – until after you were born."

"How come?"

This was a story that would take him well past midnight to detail, and so Marshall decided that this would be a good time to wrap things up. For a girl who behaved as though conversation with others was like having teeth pulled, she was suddenly wide awake and ready to go. Marshall could be proud of that, even if he did have to put a stop to it for the time being.

"That, my friend, is a tale to be told on another evening." He nodded toward her bedroom door down the hall, "If you're lucky, Alice will have crashed out and you can tiptoe on in – she'll be none the wiser. You've got school tomorrow, mom and I are off to work; time to hit the hay…"

For once, Norah did as she was told and slid down off the barstool, giving Marshall another view of her seemingly-shrinking sweatpants. He might not have uncovered much in the last ten minutes, but he was going to send her to bed relatively cheerful, and that was a victory for today.

"You weren't always her boss though, right?" the blonde continued even as Marshall followed her, snapping out the light over the sink as he went.

"Who? Mom?"

"Yeah."

"No, I was her partner."

"For how long?"

She was stalling now, anything to avoid being sent back to her room, because Marshall knew she'd been given the particulars of him and Mary many times over the years. It seemed she and Alice were more alike than they envisioned themselves to be.

"I was promoted to chief when Stan moved to DC. You were almost a year old when he left, so I guess mom and I made it about eight years before I had to pull rank and play the part of the superior."

"She was mad at first, I bet."

Marshall could understand where this conjecture had come from, as Mary never liked being told what to do, but he was glad he could hark on one of her humane qualities so many years down the road.

"Not at that juncture, actually," he corrected, stopping for a moment outside the closed bedroom door. "She was quite congratulatory. Of course, it was right after her dad died, so she was feeling pretty benevolent, I surmise. Can't expect that to last," and he winked.

Norah grinned, the days of yore bringing out her more comfortable side, for even if Marshall's stories didn't contain memories she possessed, she could clearly picture the scenario in her mind. Once upon a time, ages ago it seemed, she had been the one and only child among two squabbling inspectors and their bald, easygoing chief. Jinx feeding her French fries, Mary and Mark over-scrutinizing nannies, and Joanna coming to town to pitch in was the start of their survival as a family. While the man could be fairly certain she wouldn't change what had come in the aftermath – Robyn, Max, and Alice, for starters – it was nice to have that reminder that it had all begun at a simpler time.

"Well, if you don't want to be the boss, then why doesn't Stan become the chief again?" Norah had a suggestion, lobbying for a little bit more time outside of her covers. "He's been back three years now."

"I've gotten used to the position, as has mom," Marshall explained. "Besides, Stan's a big wig for the government, even though he's been based here for awhile. I doubt they'd give him up."

The sound of their voices must've carried up the hall, because Mary emerged from the confines of the room at the back of the house, looking around tentatively. Probably because Norah sounded so contented, she looked a little confused, and ventured further forward, likely wondering what was keeping her husband.

"What's going on?" she wanted to know, Marshall disappointed to see that she had left her glasses behind. "Everything okay out here?"

"Everything's fine," he promised. "Just indulging in a few cookies – talking about how Max is going to be whipping up parfait before long."

That was certainly not all they had talked about, but Norah would appreciate him using discretion, and the presence of her no-nonsense mom meant that she wasn't going to be able to hold out any longer.

"I was on the phone with Robyn – sorry I woke Alice."

Slightly bowled over by the apology, Mary just shook her head and forgave the action instantly because her daughter had realized her gaffe – and vocalized it, no less.

"Oh, don't worry about it…"

"Goodnight, mom."

It was as if her child had suffered some severe personality transplant. She knew Marshall was good, but the fact that Norah was suddenly stepping over and hugging Mary before turning in for the evening was unprecedented. Nothing else to do, she simply tried not to appear too flabbergasted, although she did shoot the man a wide-eyed look behind the thirteen year old's shoulder before patting her back in acceptance of the embrace.

"Oh…" some of her surprise still dribbled out of Mary's mouth, however. "Good…goodnight, Bug. You sure everything's good?"

Norah slipped away seamlessly and nodded, "Yep. I'm fine. 'Night Marshall."

"See you in the morning, champ."

It might've been his enlightening Mary's childhood for her little mini-me, showing her that everybody suffered through middle school in different ways. This could be the catalyst for her suddenly sunny disposition. Or, it could be that Norah had simply needed to talk – about anything, even if it was about nothing, and even if she didn't realize she needed it. It could've been his reminiscing about their past, his giving her the opportunity to recall when better times had, in fact, existed.

Whatever it was, Marshall – and Mary too, it would seem – was just glad they were sending Norah off to sleep far happier than she'd been at any other time during the day.

XXX

 **A/N: I always would've liked to have seen Marshall with an older Norah on the show – you know he'd love her just like he loves Mary!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Stan arrives! He is not in this story as much, but I do work him in from time to time!**

XXX

There had been a time when both Mary and Marshall had believed the intensity that was WITSEC would chug along like time itself – marching ever forward, never slowing down, and always cranking out a new batch of problems as well as solutions. Minus that fateful six months where the office had very nearly relocated to Denver, the cases poured in as steadily as they ever did. A lot of that was Stan's doing, once he had gained so much clout in DC.

But now, upwards of twenty years after Mary had first set foot in Albuquerque as Marshall's partner, it seemed the cycle – such as it was – was finally beginning to slow down. Since relocating to Albuquerque three years earlier, Stan's influence had dwindled, although he certainly made it very clear that their branch of WITSEC was to stay firmly intact. Nonetheless, they had fewer and fewer new charges these days, as DC was sending most of them into Colorado and Arizona, both of which had bigger Witness Protection divisions.

In some ways, Mary couldn't say she was sorry about this. Their current crop of witnesses, even though they were growing older and more accustomed to the program, still kept her plenty busy. With the kids, though, she enjoyed not taking on a new case every three days and being able to manage the ones she did have like clockwork. Most new individuals went to Delia, as there were so few of them, and either Mary or Marshall assisted. Whoever didn't was assigned to Stan, helping him manage his high-brow government work. Mary liked that she could still focus on being a mother, not devoting her entire existence to the Marshal Service like she used to.

And yet, she wondered about the day when the girls were adults and the Albuquerque branch of WITSEC had all-but folded completely. What would she do with her time then? It seemed foolish to fret about it now, especially since Alice wasn't even seven years old yet, but Mary was a woman who needed activity to keep her happy. Between her daughters and her job, she had never had a period of downtime, and that was the way she liked it.

On this crisp and fairly sunny Tuesday, the three inspectors plus the deputy director were in their usual places on the roof of the Sunshine Building. Although it had taken Mary awhile to get used to it, having Stan reside at the desk Marshall used to occupy was mundane anymore. As the acting chief, her husband got the office, with Delia still bunking next to the conference room. As it had been in their days with Eleanor, the blonde refused to reposition her living quarters. Her desk stayed put.

Today was a good one to have Marshall even remotely out of her presence, separated from her across the floor. Although they had sent Norah to sleep last night in a better mood than usual, she had been back to her surly self this morning, something that worried Mary more than she cared to admit. This was mostly because Marshall didn't seem to be concerning himself whatsoever. He recognized that she had changed, certainly, but he chalked it all up to adolescence, which Mary found more difficult to do.

Stan must've noticed her quiet introspection when he crossed the room to deliver her a stack of papers, because it took him two tries to get her attention.

"Mary?" he said for the second time, and likely louder than the first.

She looked up from where she'd been tapping her pencil against her desk, slightly vacant as though she were feeling especially sleepy.

"What?" she murmured, blinking and shaking her head. "Sorry."

"Forms for that family of six that came in a few months ago…" he reported warily, slipping the file folder into her hands with a suspicious glance. "You okay? You seem distracted this morning."

"It's nothing," Mary insisted, not expecting Stan to know the ins and outs of dealing with a teenager, never having been a parent himself. "Stuff at home. Nothing serious."

Long ago, the woman wouldn't have dared to reveal even that much, considering it an excess of information that no one but herself needed to know. But, the days of Mary closing herself off seemed very distant now. She'd been married to Marshall almost seven years, and she'd been a mother for thirteen. It was hard to say if she was still considered a daughter, what with both of her parents having passed away; but nonetheless, she had still played every position. Her sensitive side and ability to accept help had honed significantly – so much so that she scarcely noticed it anymore.

It seemed Stan was aware of this as well, because he didn't shy away from fishing for details.

"Anything I can do?" he wanted to know while Mary took a quick glance at the documents he had provided her with. "Is something going on with the girls?"

"No…" she sighed, wondering when Marshall was going to appear and explain the entire situation away, casting it off with a flutter of his fingers. "Alice is fine. Colorful as ever," a smirk.

Stan grinned as well, "Lia said she's really coming along in that new jive class she's started teaching."

"Yeah, my Little Bit was never much for ballet," this made the blonde think of Jinx, who had managed to pass on her figurative tutu to Robyn alone. "But, only _your_ wife would be teaching a first grader to jive. It's not one of those sexy, fling-your-clothes off ones, is it? Because I think CPS would be calling if they caught me letting my kid engage in something like that…"

"I think it's a little tamer than that," the man chuckled. "But, Lia says she's really got the moves. Quick as lightning."

"Well, she'd be making Jinx proud, I suppose."

The 'she' in Mary's comment referred to two people, both her youngest daughter and Lia. Jinx would indeed have been beaming to realize that Alice had taken up her dancing habits, even if they weren't of the more swan-like variety. She'd also likely be tickled pink that someone like Lia had taken over the studio, even if she had-had to hire an additional set of teachers to instruct in ballet because it wasn't her specialty. There was still nobody better to have filled her shoes.

"In any case…" Stan continued, not wanting to stay on the topic of his former inspector's deceased mother too long. "Sounds like she's nothing to lose sleep over…"

"And yet I still do, since I've never met a kid with so much energy – second only to Brandi," Mary noted of Alice. "But, I guess that's good for the dance circuit. And, she's such a little intellectual at school, she could be behaving horribly for all I know, and her teacher wouldn't say boo."

"Somehow I doubt that," but, Stan always believed the best of the girls. "She wouldn't be a Mann-Shannon if she didn't have a mind as sharp as yours and Marshall's."

"That's _some_ brown-nosing you're doing."

He ignored her, "So, if Alice is thriving, then is something going on with Norah?"

It was the next logical step, and Stan might be revering Mary's and Marshall's smarts, but he definitely had brains of his own. If the blonde mentioned anything related to her home, then it was a guarantee she was referring to her children. He knew what a devoted mother she was, despite many years of believing she had no maternal instincts whatsoever.

Mary could only shrug, but was secretly glad he had guessed on his own so she didn't have to unload her worries without a proper segue. She might be more tenderhearted than she used to be, but that didn't mean she was a whiner.

"Like I said, it's nothing serious," she repeated, now twirling her pencil in her fingers rather than tapping it. "She isn't exactly thrilled with school these days – brought her gym clothes home smelling the part of sweat socks last night."

"I wouldn't say that's unusual…"

"Maybe not, but staying up all night to talk to Robyn just so she can have the inside scoop?" Marshall had filled her in after they'd finally put the kids to bed for good. "For Norah, that qualifies as unusual."

"You don't think she's just…?" Stan seemed to consider his words carefully, hesitating, waffling where he stood. "I don't know…" his theory was going to sound stupid once he revealed it, and the narrow-eyed stare he was getting from Mary indicated it. "Exercising her more feminine side now that she's…you know…" the woman distinctly saw him swallow. "Getting older?"

His cheeks turned faintly pink once he'd finished and, foolish as his conjecture was, Mary couldn't help thinking it was sweet of him to take such an interest. But, before she could turn down his hypothesis, regardless of how kind he was being, Marshall strode out of his office, his arms occupied by a teetering stack of papers. It also seemed he possessed ultrasonic hearing, because he joined in their conversation as if he had been present from the get-go.

"Who's exercising their feminine side?" he repeated joyfully, marching over to Stan's desk – his old one – and depositing about half the papers on top of it. Once he was right next to the man, "Not my cutthroat wife, surely," he cracked a joke.

"He's talking about Norah," Mary informed him snidely, scowling when she saw Marshall dump the rest of his documents on the only spare space of tabletop she had visible. "And no, she isn't," she added to Stan.

"Oh, Norah's got the growing pains," the taller of the two males declared, casual as ever. "We've all been there, haven't we, deputy?"

Mary scoffed, "Growing pains? Stan? The shrunken wonder?" she joshed. "Watch who you're talking to," taking pot shots on the bald one's height.

"I meant growing pains in the metaphorical sense," Marshall clarified unnecessarily. "The emotional upheaval that comes with struggling through adolescence – teenagedom, puberty, and the like."

"Not this, again…" Mary groused, targeting the final term he used to describe Norah's aging. "Wait for it, Stan. Your former inspector here is going to quit his day job as chief and become a gynecologist." Sneering back in Marshall's direction, up into his long and angular face, "You really should see somebody about this obsession you have with the female body. It isn't right."

"You don't have to make me sound like I'm prodding around where I shouldn't be; I'd never start engaging Norah in conversation about her inevitable maturation…"

"Sure you wouldn't."

"I wouldn't!" he insisted while Stan chuckled, hands in his pockets. "I know better than that. I would mortify her…"

"Then you need to leave it alone," she snapped, seriously considering flinging her pencil his direction so it would flick between his eyes and leave a mark on his forehead. "I don't understand how you can act like the way she's been behaving lately is no big deal, and at the same time practically salivate at the idea that it might be because she's far from a kid anymore…"

"You're embellishing, Mary," he informed her mildly. "Norah's been difficult, there is no denying, but it isn't press-worthy. It happens…"

"I shouldn't have brought this up," Stan suddenly interspersed, looking guiltily from one face to another. "I just wanted to help; I only thought…"

"No, I'm glad you did," she was staring directly at Marshall now, daring him to defy her. Why she had risen to the bait so quickly, she didn't know, just that now that she was in the fray, she might as well say what needed to be said. "Because my all-too-understanding husband here seems to think that I'm not doing my job as far as educating my kid is concerned."

"I didn't say that!" he spluttered, Stan looking more remorseful by the second. "I know you spoke to Norah, but girls hear things – the locker room is notorious for…"

"And, have you been in there recently?"

"Mary, you know what I…"

"You don't think I know seventh grade's a dogfight? You don't think I'd fix Norah if I could?"

"She doesn't need _fixing_ ; there's nothing wrong with her; she's probably just confused…"

"She is not confused!" now Mary was yelling, abandoning her work all together to give Marshall her full and angry attention. "But, she's not just some other thirteen-year-old either! She's _my_ thirteen-year-old – our thirteen-year-old – yours and mine and Mark's. She has her own issues and her own problems. I am telling you that whatever's up with her is not going to be explained away by making sure she's familiar with every sexual and reproductive scenario under the sun!"

Her voice rang across the vast expanse on all sides of the trio, echoing up to the rafters. Marshall looked startled to say the least; unable to fathom that he had done something wrong without even meaning to, without even trying to push her buttons as he was really very skilled at doing. He'd known she was troubling herself over Norah, but it appeared it was bothering her more than he'd realized.

And Stan, in transpired, seemed to have had enough. The mention of puberty had probably done it for him long ago, and Marshall might be the chief these days, but that didn't mean he couldn't lay the smack down when he needed to.

"Come on you two; cut it out…" Stan's tone was straight without being steely or too serious. "This is a place of business…"

"What business?" Mary interjected, knowing their portion of the building had long since become a ghost town compared to the rest. "Are you worried the dust bunnies heard me ranting?"

"This is my fault," he went on while Marshall continued to goggle. "You all probably weren't interested in bringing Norah's…predicament, whatever it is, to the office…" he figured. "If you want to discuss it, I am here. Otherwise, I'll leave you to deal with it on your own; I have no doubt you will tunnel to the root of things soon enough."

At this closing remark, Marshall exhaled slowly, looking like he wanted to leave on better terms, to not exit with his wife still fuming, however silently. But, Stan's words rang true, and to beat this to death now would only result in another argument. How they'd gotten ensconced in the one they'd just had, he still couldn't be completely sure, but it wasn't Stan's doing, despite what he'd said.

"I'm trying to get a stipend from DC to book the next few witnesses for Albuquerque rather than Phoenix…" he murmured, trying to prove he could move on. "I left the information on your desk," he went on toward his previous boss.

"I'll take a look at it – make some calls."

"Great."

Giving Mary another sideways look, with nary a word about the files he had saddled her with, he retreated back to the office, apparently with nothing else to say.

It stood to reason that Stan would bid the same retreat, especially considering he was feeling culpable for having caused the rift in the first place. But, instead, he stuck around; Mary could feel his gaze even though she was determinedly staring at the form in front of her. She wondered if he would go away if she just ignored him long enough, but Stan could be fairly patient when he needed to.

When she thought she could chance it without looking like she wished to dissect the subject of Norah, she raised her eyes a fraction of an inch and saw that he was blinking his large brown orbs right down at her. Evidently, her wish for him to leave well enough alone wasn't going to come true.

"This is really getting to you, huh?" he surmised slowly, quietly enough that Marshall wouldn't know they were still talking. "I didn't know things had gotten so bad…"

"They're not _bad_ ," Mary resigned herself to finishing this out, not without a sigh. "This isn't a tragedy. It's just that she's not…"

Would Stan understand what she meant if she used the words she had in mind? If she were to respond the way she wanted to while hashing it out with Marshall, she'd have gotten a detailed lecture on why she felt the way she felt. More often than not, she enjoyed his insight, but today she could be glad that Stan wouldn't analyze her feelings so critically.

"She's not really Norah anymore…" she'd thought admitting it would make her feel better, but instead it just made her sad. "Not _my_ Norah, anyway."

Stan nodded sedately, a silent invitation for her to continue.

"She used to be so sure of herself – confident about who she was and what she wanted…"

"Like you," the man interjected, but Mary shrugged this off.

"But, lately…" shaking her head. "She's confident in a way that I wish she wasn't – like, she'll go toe-to-toe with me, and she was never like that before. I hate fighting with her, even though I pretend all the time that it doesn't bother me…"

"Right…"

"But, I can't imagine she's that way at school," a hunch deep down just knew that Norah lost whatever poise she possessed when she set foot inside those double doors. "Every morning it's a battle – she hates it, but she won't tell me why."

"Yeah, but you know teenagers don't want to talk to their mom; I doubt it's specific to Norah…"

"You sound like Marshall," Mary griped, halfway between exasperated and endeared that they could be so alike. "And he thinks once she's through 'maturing' or whatever you want to call it…" Stan went distinctly red. "That she'll be okay, and I can't see it. She's a good kid, Stan…" she sounded pleading, rotating her pencil between her fingers as she spoke. "She still is, but I never see it anymore…"

As far as the deputy was concerned, Mary sounded just about as mixed-up as her daughter must be, and he couldn't say he had a lot of experience dealing with young girls, or even children as a whole. But, he'd known Mary and Marshall as well as Norah an awfully long time, and he knew that in spite of how growing up and moving on changed people, that didn't mean who they really were underneath was put to rest forever. He had always known Norah to be fiercely independent, like her mother, but surprisingly sensitive, like Marshall, and a jokester, like Mark. Having the best of all three worlds had always served her well, but it seemed the latter two traits were going by the wayside these days.

Leaning in, placing his hands on the desktop so that he was inches from Mary's face, he saw a woman who looked unusually woebegone, proving Norah was on her mind just as frequently as she was telling him she was. If he could do anything to ease a psyche that was likely filled with nothing but worry, then he would.

"I know she's a good kid – one of the best," he didn't want the mother to think he envisioned Norah as having gone sour, even if that was the case. "She's got a big heart, and that just doesn't go away overnight…"

"Could've fooled me…" Mary rolled her eyes.

"She may not be _acting_ like your Norah…" he brought her back to her original claim. "But, she still is underneath. This period of her life is probably going to take some patience…"

"Not exactly my strong suit," she murmured, which produced a soft smile from Stan.

"Give it time," he insisted. "You know you've got back-up wherever you need it."

Mary supposed this consisted of Marshall and Mark, as well as Stan himself, and she could be grateful for that. There had never been a shortage of parents or parental figures in Norah's life, and in remembering this, she nodded to show she recognized this wasn't something she could take for granted.

"Who would've ever thought I'd spend this much time worrying about my legion of offspring?" she teased, including Robyn and Max in her term. "Hard to believe, isn't it?"

"Yeah, once upon a time, you said I should shoot you if you ever decided to have three kids," Stan raised his eyebrows. "Norah isn't the only one who's changed."

The only difference was that Mary liked to think she had changed for the better, but did her best not to dwell on that. In some ways, her success with all the children – even the ones that weren't hers – was to be admired. Her niece and nephew might not be living under her roof, but she often felt she'd had as much of a hand in raising them as Brandi and Peter. Robyn was flourishing, and Max had made enormous strides since his timid, mute days, even if he still kept to himself.

"And, I trust the rest of the troops are making their way," Stan assumed, reading Mary's mind when she began to look contemplative. "You said Alice couldn't be better, right?"

She chuckled hearing him mention her youngest daughter for a second time and wagged her head, knowing the brunette's problems paled in comparison to Norah's.

"She wants to know what hell is," she informed Stan grimly, resting her chin in her hand. "Nice, right?"

"I'd expect nothing less from your kid," he proclaimed. "You're doing your best, kiddo. Nobody can ask for more."

There was plenty more she could've said as a way to inform him he was wrong, that if her best wasn't good enough than it didn't qualify as her best, but he had already turned to head back to his desk before she could argue further.

In his absence, Mary just felt stupid as well as annoyed at herself for having fought with Marshall. He was hardly to blame for the situation they were in, and in many ways, his approach was preferable to her own. He was perpetually calm, only sparingly sitting Norah down to tell her-her behavior was inappropriate. Typically, that task was left for Mary and Mark, as he didn't want to step on any toes or play the role of a parent because, in name, that was not what he was. The woman would've been more than happy to have him lay down the law on her more often, but his method was better. She needed his serenity to get her through.

In many ways, Mary wasn't so terrible at dealing with her child, but the whole thing often felt like a farce. She could be as rational and as steady as Marshall, but inside she was neither of those things. It took all her strength not to make things worse by hollering or bickering ad nauseam. Nonetheless, she probably deserved some credit for that.

Looking up, she saw that her husband was feigning that he was busy inside his office, but he had left the door open. The high window behind her was throwing beams of warm autumn sunshine onto the floor, casting him in half-shadow, but there was no mistaking that he was looking at her too. Without much she could do from far away in terms of apologizing, she only nodded her head, making sure she was catching his eye.

In typical Marshall fashion, he held no grudge, and sent her a nod of his own, even smiling slightly to show there were no hard feelings. Mary tried to work the muscles of her face into something similar, but when she glanced away again, her gaze caught one of the very few framed photos on her desk, and she found it still more difficult to grin in return.

There were the kids, smiling and laughing on the couch, stuffed into holiday attire of Jinx's choosing, completely spoiling any semblance of a posed Christmas portrait. Norah, in a dark green sweater and jeans, sat in the middle, probably about eight years old. Her blonde hair had been trimmed since its extra-long days, but still hung below her shoulders. Robyn sat next to her, far more decked out than her cousin, in a red shirt with a sparkling reindeer on the front, her hair tied off in elaborate French braids. Both girls were laughing; Robyn's eyes weren't even open, but her mouth was. Norah's tongue was poking between her teeth.

A two-year-old Alice sat on her sister's lap; it was impossible to tell what sort of frilly dress she was wearing, because she was making a break for the floor, crawling toward one of the armrests. Her brown curls were lighter and finer here than they were at present, growing in coils all over her tiny head. Max, being squeezed to death by Robyn, was a wide-eyed wonder, a spindly four-years-old, his mop of sandy hair rumpled all over his head. He stared, transfixed, at whoever had been behind the camera, chubby cheeks and all, looking curious without his glasses to conceal his beautiful baby blues.

Marshall had constantly teased her for choosing this picture to display, and yet when Mary stared at it now, she knew exactly why it was still out for the entire world to see. This was the kids as she had always molded them – Norah playing a sneaky joke, Robyn putting on a performance, Alice off to do her own thing, and Max just trying to make sense of it all.

She longed to hold the faces in the photo, to preserve them in time, because there was no telling if the individuals within would ever come out to play again.

XXX

 **A/N: I don't mean to belabor Norah's troubles, but I feel like I need to set the scene, so to speak. Thank-you to those who are reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

XXX

Making up with Marshall aside, Mary's Tuesday scarcely improved even after she got home, waiting for her husband to return with the girls once they got out of school. It was a rare evening that at least one was not at the office, but it had been a light day, and with Stan and Delia around, they could afford to take whatever time they claimed to need. Just the same, Mary wished she had something to keep her busy, to keep her mind off what sort of frame of mind Norah might be in when she walked through the door.

Unfortunately, a phone call just before four o'clock put her even more on edge, even though initially it seemed perfectly innocent.

Her cell ringing from where she'd deposited it on the kitchen table, Mary dried her hands on a towel after having emptied the dishwasher and went to answer. She saw at once that it was Mark, and gone were the days that she was sorry to hear from him. Ironically, he was probably the closest thing to a friend that she'd had in a long time, not counting Marshall, of course. He still drove her crazy with his ever-present juvenility, but she was used to it by now.

"Hey, what's up?" the woman shook her hair out of her face, wiping her free hand on her jeans.

"Not much," Mark replied easily. "How are you?"

"Oh…you know…" Mary sighed and used the opportunity to take a seat, sliding out one of the wooden chairs and facing the window that overlooked the backyard. "Work. Corralling the kids. The usual."

"How's Alice?" he always asked, even though he saw her about as frequently as he saw Norah. "Jill said she caught a glimpse of her at school the other day."

"Doing what?"

This tidbit made Mary suspicious, as she forever wondered what her bubbly youngest daughter did out of the eyesight of her parents. Jill had actually been a useful tool in this department, as she taught second grade in the same building where Alice and Max attended first and third. Max didn't exactly need to be monitored, but you could never be sure about Alice.

"Playing in the water fountain," Mark reported with a chuckle. "Sounds like she escaped class for a few minutes to use the bathroom and was showing a friend how you can put your thumb over the spout so it'll spray more like a hose…"

He was laughing even as he trailed off, but Mary groaned and rolled her eyes. The influence that Robyn had-had on Alice's performing side had not exactly been a good one. A few more years, and she'd shape up to be a real class clown.

"She's clever something awful, Mare," her ex-husband went on fondly, but she stopped him right there.

"Yeah, 'awful' is one word for it," she targeted. "What is her deal? She is really going to get in trouble one day, and I don't fancy going down to the school just so I can listen to what a little heathen she's turning into…"

"She's just having fun," predictably, Mark shrugged this off. "Jill told her to cut it out and that was it."

"She shouldn't be going easy on her," Mary warned. "Did she tell her real teacher?"

"Doesn't sound like she needed to," he assumed. "Don't sweat it, all right? Jill knows how to crack a whip when she needs to. Believe me; she's getting in some practice being firm when it comes to Norah."

It was only a matter of time before he brought this up, and she suspected this was the reason he had called in the first place. Her entire life seemed to revolve around Norah's negative aspects these days, and she wasn't a fan of it at all. And although she didn't like the idea of Jill acting as a parent, because Marshall certainly picked his battles, she also knew it had to be necessary on occasion. She didn't know how her child behaved while she was sleeping at her dad's, but from everything Mark told her, it wasn't so different from what went on under Mary's roof. They'd made a pact to keep each other in the loop even more than usual once the turbulent teenager had emerged.

"How'd she get off to school this morning?" the man continued when he received no response from Mary, but what he didn't know was that she was rubbing her eyes on the opposite end. "No brawling, I hope."

"We've had worse," the blonde tried to sound optimistic. "She got into it with Alice when she spent too long in the bathroom, but that was it. Pretty good, really."

"Good," he murmured. "She really fought me on it one day last week; I can't remember which. It was 7:45 before I got her in the car; I have no idea how I got her there on time."

"You and me both," Mary concurred. "It happens around here at least once a week too. But, Marshall had a chat with her last night and she seemed okay – better than usual," she shared, wanting to give the father any sliver of good news she had. "Of course, it was all gone this morning, but…" her voice tapered away, wishing in retrospect that she hadn't added the last bit.

There was a lapse from Mark's end, and the woman had a fairly good idea of why all she was receiving was an excess of silence. Both wanted to say the same thing. They wanted to offer solutions for how to remedy the situation with their daughter, but neither had any ideas. Faint hope that this would run its course was still wholly prevalent, but Mary knew it was foolish to expect the moodiness to die down in a matter of weeks. Norah had only been thirteen for two months. They had a long, winding, treacherous road ahead.

"…Anyway, um…" since she'd been the one to abandon the discussion last, the inspector opted to pick up the thread. "Is…is that why you called?" she might as well find out now. "Just to touch base on Norah?"

"Well, kind of…" Mark cleared his throat suddenly, and something resembling uncertainty snuck into his voice. "There's something I wanted to discuss with you where she's concerned, but I'd rather do it in person, if you don't mind. You think I could stop by tonight?"

A sense of foreboding stole over Mary like a thick cloud, an impending thunderstorm just waiting to strike. Though she had not a clue what the man had in mind, it couldn't be anything good if he wanted to arrange a sit-down as soon as possible. Her best bet would be to get him to fess up and avoid any intimate setting.

"You sure this is nothing you can say over the phone?" she proposed wearily. "Because, you're not supposed to have Norah until tomorrow night and if you show up here…"

"I get that, but this isn't an 'over the phone,' kind of thing," he persisted. "Trust me, okay? I'll be as discrete as I can, but I do need to talk to you – you and Marshall, if he's around."

This was getting more ominous by the minute, but Mary was pretty sure she sensed finality coming from Mark's end. Whatever he needed to discuss, he was set on doing it face-to-face. Years before, she would've sparred with him for another ten minutes, haggling until she got her way and could feel like she was in control, but that didn't seem so important anymore. She'd learned, as best she could, to accept what other people deemed best, even if she could still go nose-to-nose with anybody if need be.

"I…I guess if it's that important…" Mary murmured just as she heard a key in the door, signaling the arrival of Marshall and the girls. "Come after dinner – maybe around eight?"

"Sure."

"I've gotta go, okay? I'll talk to you later."

"All right. I'll see you soon."

She was able to hang up just in time. Why she thought Norah would be perceptive enough to note her skittishness with the caller, she didn't know, just that she didn't want to take any chances. Perhaps she would be able to slip in casually that Mark would be showing his face sooner rather than later. If she was laid-back, maybe Norah would be too.

Never mind that her mind was still whirring a million miles an hour trying to figure out what it was that Mark deemed so significant that he insisted on being present. This must be quite a bomb he was dropping. If so, his timing couldn't be worse. They had their very own time bomb always ticking between them, and anything under the sun could set it off.

"Good afternoon to you!" Marshall called as he came through the door, Norah presumably right behind him, Alice racing like a bullet through the house, backpack swinging side-to-side on her shoulders. "The women have arrived!"

"All three of you…" Mary quipped sarcastically. When Alice crashed through on her way to the fridge, the mother nearly got herself bowled over, and she yanked on the hook-hole on top of her bag to pull her backward. "Slow down, Little Bit. That string cheese isn't going anywhere."

"But, I want the splotchy kind!" she bleated, her head already buried in the crisper.

"Colby-Jack, Big Al," Marshall announced, correcting her politely.

"And, hello to you too," Mary muttered, noticing that Alice hadn't even seemed to index that she was standing there. "Only one…" she admonished, seeing her try to sneak more than her fair share of snacks. "Leave some for Norah, you hear?"

But, at that moment, Norah herself emerged, swinging her own bag onto the island and lifting herself into a stool without missing a beat.

"I don't want string cheese," she groused. "I'm sick of it."

At this, Alice eagerly grabbed a third and tried to steal away with them and into the living room, but Marshall caught her and held out his hand.

"Fork them over," he ordered with a smirk.

"But, Norah just said…!"

"Just the same," her father went on, graciously firm. "One is more than enough."

Seeing that Marshall was occupied with their mutual child, Mary turned back to Norah, who was absently coiling a strand of hair around her index finger. She kept shooting furtive glances toward her backpack, no doubt dreading having to engage in any homework she hadn't been able to complete at school. Deciding that this could be handled a little later, Mary reflected over her previous comment and did what she could to help – small and underappreciated as it was probably going to be.

"You're not hungry, Bug?"

All this earned her was a shrug, and so she went to the pantry and began rooting through bags of chips.

"If you don't want cheese, I can dig you up something else…"

"Whatever."

Mary fought the compulsion to tell her off, to demand a more cooperative response. How had she never realized for so many years how frustrating it was to try and be civil with someone who was so stand-offish and stubborn? She'd given that attitude to Marshall and Stan – to everyone – for who knew how many years. It certainly was coming back to bite her in the ass.

"We have some peanuts…" she offered, turning over a jar that was half-full in her hand. "They're the honey-roasted kind. How about that?"

"I guess."

"Well, I'm going to have some," Mary suddenly decided on a whim that they sounded pretty good to her, and shut the door.

After a quick pit-stop to place the jar on the island in front of her daughter, she went to the cupboard and unearthed a bowl, which she set beside it and dumped more than a handful of peanuts inside. Happy to munch away, she joined Norah on the opposite side of the counter, nudging the bowl her direction as a means to get her to eat some – maybe even to open up along the way.

"So…" she began, crunching loudly. "Which part of school sucked the least today?"

Mary wasn't sure if she was trying to sound cool by using such terminology, or if she was just smart enough now to know better than to ask, 'how was your day?' The answer was always the same, and it was never positive. If she wanted information, she had to finagle, and she was getting pretty good at it.

"I don't know…" this usually came with the package, but Norah actually went on, which was a surprise. "We got to read this play-version of 'The Diary of Anne Frank' in language arts, and I got to play Anne for awhile. That wasn't so bad."

"Hmm…" Mary tried to sound interested, but not over-eager. "I thought Robyn was the actress around here," a tease, hoping it was safe.

"Well, it wasn't the play part I liked so much, but the story was pretty good. Only, I guess it wasn't the whole version or the real version or something; I don't think we'll get to read that."

"I thought you were reading Johnny what's-his-name, anyway…" Mary seemed to remember something like that from the night before.

"Tremain," Norah supplied. "Yeah, this was just for today," she seemed disappointed, as she did love to read.

Her mother was suddenly inspired, and didn't hesitate to share, "You and Marshall should see if you can find the whole story at the library or somewhere – I mean, if you liked it."

Whatever Norah's response to this was going to be, Mary wasn't going to find out, because at that moment Alice skipped back in, picking apart her cheese with her fingernails, Marshall returning the stolen ones back to the fridge.

"Who's Anne Frank?" she spluttered, spewing bits of cheese onto the floor, which made Norah wrinkle her nose.

"Chew with your mouth closed," Mary reminded her.

Alice shrugged, "So, who's Anne Frank? Is she your new friend or something?" she directed this question at her sister.

"No," Norah replied, at least managing not to tack an 'idiot' on the end. "She was a girl who hid in her attic during World War II."

"Was she a sissy or something?" Alice sashayed her hips around, obviously not interested in a book such as this. "Afraid of the war?"

"The war was real, dummy," Norah couldn't hold off for long. "This isn't a made up story. The Nazi's wanted to kill Anne and her family because she was Jewish and they wanted to kill all the Jewish people."

"Peter's Jewish!" the little one piped up suddenly. "So are Robyn and Max," they did celebrate Hanukkah as well as Christmas. "Are they gonna get killed?"

Oddly enough, she did not seem at all shocked by this possibility, more curious than anything else. It was this, perhaps, that tried Norah's patience.

"Do you have to ask so many questions?" she snapped. "You wouldn't understand a book like that. You're too little."

"I know how to read!" Alice protested, still chewing up her cheese and forgetting to close the hatch. "That book isn't so fancy, I bet! It sounds stupid – who wants to read about people who die?"

" _Smart_ people," Norah emphasized. "Just shut up. I wasn't talking to you anyway; I was talking to mom."

"Easy on the 'shut up' there, champ," Marshall slipped in, clapping Norah's shoulder. And then, to prove he wasn't playing favorites, "Come on, sugar; show me what you have for homework."

He tried to pull Alice back toward the living room, thus leaving the older girl alone with her mother, but Alice wouldn't budge. She was terribly willful when she wanted to be, not stopping or slowing down until she got what she wanted. Usually, this involved other people, which was what made her so different from Norah. At the age of six, she'd been content to play by herself, something that Alice absolutely did not have the staying power for. She craved attention too much to wander off on her own.

"But, I didn't tell mommy about the Halloween party yet!" she whined, which produced a sigh from Norah, knowing she was going to have to step aside so her little sister could interrupt. "I don't even have a costume yet, and Miss Whitmore said our party is next Friday, and…!"

"Next Friday is almost two weeks away," Marshall tried to speak quietly so she wouldn't escalate to yelling. "You have plenty of time to get a costume; last I heard you weren't even sure what you wanted to dress as…"

"I need ideas from mommy!" Alice decided at once, and probably on the spot just so she would get her way. "I don't know if I…!"

"Mom is busy," Marshall persisted gently. "When she's finished with Norah, she can talk to you."

The brunette looked as if she was considering throwing a tantrum, pouting with her lip stuck way out, but she must have concluded that it wasn't worth a scene, and reluctantly took her father's hand, which led her away from the kitchen. She threw dark looks over her shoulder the entire time, but Mary knew she couldn't really be that put-out. Marshall could listen to her for hours; she only wanted Mary because she knew she was unavailable.

Once they were gone, Norah could only exhale, clearly forgetting what she had been discussing to begin with, due to Alice's disruption. Apparently, it didn't matter anymore, because she just shook her head and took another handful of nuts.

"Halloween…" she puffed disdainfully. "I forgot it was next week."

"Yeah, me too, come to think of it…" Mary remarked, knowing she was probably going to have to pick up or make cookies for the aforementioned party; maybe she could enlist Max. "I was never much for it myself – minus the candy part," anything involving food always had her sniffing around. "When I was a kid, Jinx dressed me up as one of those awful poodle skirt girls," she shuddered just at the memory. "I'd had enough after that."

"I remember when dad made me wear that bumblebee costume," Norah grumbled.

"Wow, really?" Mary was surprised she'd retained this. "You were only about three…"

"I still remember," she insisted. "Grandma bought me that headband antenna…" she shook her head. "I looked like such a dork."

"Well, what are grandmothers for?" the blonde would chalk it up to that. "If it weren't for me, Jinx, Joanna, _and_ your dad would've dolled you up so much you could double for one of those pageant girls with the five pounds of makeup."

"Lucky me," Norah didn't sound like she really thought so, but she smirked nonetheless.

"Speaking of…" this was the best transition Mary could come up with as she stood and went to take the empty bowl to the sink. "Dad may drop by tonight. I guess he's gonna be in the neighborhood for something," she attempted to sound offhand, fibbing as she was.

Even though she had her back turned, fiddling with the faucet, she still thought she could hear Norah groan, which could mean any number of things. She had been hoping her child would be indifferent to the impromptu visit, at the best – suspicious at the worst. But, judging by the guttural sound that had come out of her throat, she was neither of those things. She was annoyed. What had Mark done to earn himself that status?

"What's that about?" Mary decided she would just ask, venturing back to the island.

Norah's face was permanently affixed in a frown, "You're not going to make me stay over there tonight, are you?"

"No, you go on Wednesdays. You know that."

"So then, why is he coming?"

"I don't know," Mary sensed those misgivings she had feared rising to the surface. "He could be showing up because he doesn't want to cook his own dinner for all I know," this was a flimsy explanation, but as she had no other answers, it was as good as Norah was going to get.

"Is he bringing Jill?"

"I don't know," she repeated, suddenly growing irritated against her will, mostly because she liked to be the one holding all the cards, and she clearly was not in this case. "I don't think he's trying to organize a sting or something, Bug," vaguely, she wondered if her elder daughter even knew what a 'sting' was. "He probably just has something he wants to tell me."

"Not something he wants to tell _me?"_ she was getting argumentative, and fast. "Because Marshall said last night that I could stay over at dad's more often and I told him I didn't want to, and it sounds like dad is trying to get me over there himself and I'm not going!" her voice rose in no time flat, echoing around the kitchen while Mary looked on, bewildered. "I hate staying over there!"

"What?" Mary breathed, never having heard anything like this before. "What do you mean? Why wouldn't you tell me if…?"

"I don't tell you everything!" Norah barked, as if her mother had been the one to initiate the third degree. "If I don't want to go to dad's, I don't have to!"

"You're not going anywhere tonight!" the inspector's endurance for the abrupt shift in mood didn't hold up. "Norah, would you calm down?" meanwhile, she tried to do the same herself. "Is there something going on between you and dad that you want to…?"

"I didn't say that!" now the younger stood up, nearly knocking her backpack onto the floor with her elbow. "I just said I'm not going there – and if Jill comes here tonight then I'm not talking to dad!"

"Wait a minute…" now they were getting somewhere, Mary thought, although her time for figuring out the root of Norah's anger was going to be very short-lived. "What's the deal with Jill? You've always told me that you two get along…"

"Is she coming here or not?!" an explosion interrupted without a proper response. "Tell me!"

"I said I don't know, but I'm not going to turn her away if she does!" Mary wanted to make that clear. "Mark loves her; you know that – you've always known that…"

Once upon a time, the taller would've absolutely shut the door in an intruding woman's face if Norah gave the word, but that was no longer the case. She'd grown to care for Mark very much, and it wasn't up to her to screw up his love life. For the most part, it barely affected her and she liked Jill as well as she liked anybody, and that was the best anyone could hope for. Even Mary was smart enough to know that giving into Norah's demands would only put a band-aid on the problem, whatever it was. Moreover, doing that would disappoint Marshall, something his wife refused to do.

Speaking of Marshall, he could hardly miss the blow-up taking place in the kitchen, because he wandered in looking wary, but strong-minded in doing what he could. Unfortunately, Alice was following him, which wouldn't improve Norah's temper at all.

"What's going on in here?" the man wanted to know, trying to sound direct but also even. "Whatever it is…"

But, Norah wouldn't let him finish, "Tell mom that Jill shouldn't come here!"

Marshall looked confused, no doubt playing off the perplexed look his longtime-partner was giving him, unsure how they'd descended into the trenches again so quickly. By the same token, Norah appealing to her step-father for something she had to know he wouldn't give her spoke to desperation of the highest degree.

"Now, Norah…" he began gently.

"Why is dad coming over?" she demanded of him without letting him finish, but this was new to Marshall and he would have just as few, if not fewer, answers than Mary.

"I didn't know he was," he admitted blankly. "But, if I were you, I wouldn't worry…"

"I'm not going to talk to him!" Norah insisted once more, at which point the biological parent in the room had-had her fill of being ordered around and shouted at, and intended to make it known.

"Then don't," she broke in bluntly. "And, if you're going to give hell to Jill then I don't want you talking to anybody anyway."

Marshall closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, no doubt because he wasn't a fan of Mary targeting Norah's future behavior before she'd even done anything, but he didn't get a chance to say anything else on the subject. Hearing the name in question, Alice decided to insert herself, and it wasn't about the concept of 'hell' this time either.

"Jill is so cool!" she contributed blithely, a little ray of sunshine amidst the rest of the turmoil. "When I put my finger in the water fountain, she didn't even tell my teacher!"

This wasn't quite what had happened, according to Mark, and Mary had half a mind to reprimand Alice for goofing off in the halls, then and there, but Norah took care of that too.

"Shut up, Alice!"

"Norah," Marshall's tone turned suddenly sharper and he laid a hand on her shoulder, which she immediately jerked away from. "Whatever you're upset about, don't take it out on your sister; that's not cool…"

"Yeah!" the girl in question piped up, pleased to have her father's support, but Mary wasn't going to allow that to linger for long.

"Alice, hush," she reprimanded. "Stay out of this, all right?"

But, Alice just grinned, her older counterpart still seething with undisclosed rage, and managed to get the last word in even in spite of being told to keep her head down and stay quiet.

"I still think Jill is cool."

And, Mary herself had not a single issue with the woman that Mark had been attached to for the better part of three years now. But, she had to consider how she would feel if such a woman were about to shack up with _her_ father, and when she did, she knew 'cool' would not be the first word that sprang to mind.

XXX

 **A/N: Norah is a pistol (not to mention Alice,) and this is only the beginning! Thank-you, again, to everyone who is reading and/or reviewing.**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I don't know how much of a shock Mark's news will be, as I am not very suspenseful, but here it is anyway (and, it's not the last time he'll have news, either). ;)**

XXX

It was with a definite degree of apprehension that Mary allowed Mark over her threshold that evening. Her anxiety only intensified when she saw that Jill was, in fact, right by his side, and she could only hope this emotion didn't show on her face. She'd been very proud of how she had accepted the other woman for the past three years, and she wasn't going to start looking like a jealous, beady-eyed mom now.

Norah, as promised, was shut up in her bedroom, but Mary had to wonder if she wasn't listening at the door in spite of insisting that she wanted no part of the visitors. Luckily for all of them, Marshall was as calm and collected as ever, offering around a plate of cheese and crackers as well as a bottle of wine.

"You sure I can't tempt you?" he spun his platter on one hand like a waiter as Mark and Jill took seats side by side on the sofa, Mary in one of the chairs. "Both cheese and wine have been allowed to age, so I imagine they would be a delectable treat…"

"I'll try the cheese, but will pass on the wine," Jill finally lamented, grabbing a slice with her fingertips and taking a bite. "And, Mark is just waiting to say that what he really wants is a beer," she contributed around bites.

"There's Yuengling in the fridge," Mary intoned automatically, as it had become a habit to keep one or two bottles of Mark's favorite since he was over so often. "The Maître D over there can get one for you," referring to her husband's hosting capabilities.

"No, it's no trouble…" Mark made to rise, but the other man was a step ahead of him.

"Nonsense," he shook his head and set his plate on the coffee table. "Enjoy the refreshments. I'll join you momentarily."

Not going to say no to being waited on, the shorter gentleman shrugged and nabbed a few crackers, crunching away and holding his hand beneath his chin to catch stray crumbs. Jill seemed satisfied with her single sliver of cheese and shook her head when her boyfriend tried to get her to take another bite. The wine remained untouched, although Mary was contemplating pouring herself a glass in case she needed it to get through the evening.

And, reading her features correctly, Mark threw her a look as he devoured his after-dinner snack.

"You look a little worse for wear," he commented baldly, but on Mark, this was a predictable observation. "Long day?"

"You could say that," Mary replied, twirling a strand of hair idly around her finger. "Norah's like Krakatoa these days – lava spewing everywhere."

"School wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs today, I guess."

"When is it ever?" she bemoaned, wishing Marshall would return so she wouldn't feel she was complaining alone. "Oh, and speaking of school…" she didn't particularly want to stay on the subject of Norah because it would just mean rehashing the same old topics. She leaned forward and turned to the girlfriend, "Jill, don't feel like you have to go easy on Alice if she's screwing around; I'm serious…"

This was not said because Mary thought Jill wasn't being enough of a disciplinarian, but rather because she didn't want her troubling herself with whether or not the child liked her. Under any other scenario, Jill's and Alice's interactions would be minimal, but as they saw quite a bit of each other at the elementary, there were a few things that needed to be ironed out.

"Oh, don't worry about it…" the teacher waved a flippant hand and shook her head. "Between you and me, I _did_ tell Miss Whitmore about the water fountain thing. She's keeping an eye out."

Fortunately, Jill had known the inspector long enough to know she didn't frown on being tough when the situation called for it.

"Curiosity gets the better of Big Al more often than not…" Marshall finally returned, handing Mark his beer without another word. "We understand that keeping her in line is a full time job."

"No, I love Alice…" Jill insisted. "You know the lines get blurred between school and home…"

"Of course," Marshall cut in.

"I'll try to keep you on the up-and-up if I spot anything else."

"You're our spy until she goes to sixth grade, you know that, right?" Mary was half-joking, half-serious. "Honestly, find your sunglasses now."

Jill just chuckled, "Well, it's like I tell the kids in my class – eyes in the back of my head."

"In the law enforcement game, we tend to grow an extra pair ourselves," Marshall concluded soundly.

Dropping onto the floor by his wife's legs, so tall even sitting down that his head was practically in Mary's lap, his final tease left them with an uncomfortable silence. Small talk could only last them so long. Jill had always done very well slipping into their usual, fast-paced byplay, but even she seemed to know that shooting the breeze wasn't going to continue forever. If Mary had her way, she would still put off getting to the crux of the matter – whatever it was – as long as possible.

"Where, um…where is Alice, anyway?" Mark finally asked just to fill the quiet with something.

The child in question must've heard her name one too many times, and she wasn't going to say no to a little showing off. With their voices carrying up the hall, she pattered into the living room in her socks; just before Marshall could answer that she was supposed to be in bed. Predictably, Norah was not with her.

"Hi Mark!" she exploded like a little rocket, tripping over the hems on a pair of her sister's old pajama pants. Without further ado, she took a flying leap and catapulted herself onto his lap. "Guess what?"

The man himself chuckled, glad for a distraction, "I don't know. What?"

"Halloween is next week!"

"You don't say?" he mused, shifting her so that her legs were dangling over his knees. "You decide what you're going to be yet?"

"I need ideas!" Alice trotted out the same tired line she had used that afternoon. "I don't want to be something that everybody else is going to be!"

"That will be a trick," Jill chimed in. "I haven't forgotten the one year I taught fourth grade and I had a room full of cheerleaders and football players."

"Uniqueness gets harder to achieve as time goes on, I imagine," Marshall spoke up, Mary absently running her fingers through his hair from where she sat above him, counting down the seconds until she could banish her daughter back under her covers. "But, we will figure something out, sugar." Struck with sudden inspiration, "Hey, there's a thought!"

"What?" Alice wrinkled her nose.

"Go as a sugar shaker – and Max could go as salt or pepper!"

Mary couldn't help laughing, even though her mind was solely planted on whatever Mark's mysterious secret was. Her chief still knew how to lighten even the tensest of moments, and Mark and Jill guffawed heartily as well.

"I think it's clever!" Marshall bleated over all the raucous giggling. "You wanted something original, no?"

"Daddy, everybody would make fun of me!" the little one decided. "And, sugar and salt don't even go together!"

"You mean you don't put salt on your cereal in the morning?" Mark joshed.

"Yuck!"

"Well, then we'll have to save the better ideas for another evening," the father played bad cop this time, tweaking Alice's foot from where it swayed out of Mark's grasp. "Somebody is up past their bedtime."

"But, I'm not tired!" she was thriving under the presence of the guests, and she reminded Mary so much of Robyn at such an age that it was scary, even though they looked nothing alike. "And besides, I haven't gotten to show Mark and Jill my new dance yet – the one that Lia taught me!"

"You can show them another time," Mary informed her staunchly. "Stan said there's a show soon; they can watch you and Robyn."

"But, I want to show them _now!"_

"Alice, I don't want to hear you arguing with me…" Mary wasn't going to spar with her all night, but the sudden brusqueness in her voice didn't get by her sensitive child, who wilted at being admonished in front of visitors.

"Mom-my!" she began to whine, stretching out her name to its two syllables. "Norah isn't in bed! Why do I have to?"

"Come on now, Big Al…" Marshall got in on the action and stood up once more, lifting the brunette off Mark's lap so she couldn't run away. "We've talked about listening and following directions; you do it here and you do it at school…"

"But, daddy!"

"I've heard enough," Marshall's voice was sedate, but resolute. "Say goodnight to Jill and Mark like a big girl."

It was funny how referring to her as a 'big girl' made her seem more like a baby, Mary thought, who was embarrassed against her will that Alice was about to pitch a fit with company around. Some might not consider Norah's father and his girlfriend the typical kind of 'company' since they were over all the time, but that didn't mean the little girl's manners should go by the wayside.

"I'll see you again tomorrow Alice, okay?" Mark tried to help. "I'd love to see your moves then."

Still frowning, but with the promise of the next day to sustain her, she quieted down and accepted her fate.

"Goodnight Alice," Jill sang. "I have recess duty tomorrow, so I'll see you on the playground, okay?"

Brightening, because she liked having an 'in' that her other classmates did not, Alice grinned without thinking twice and nodded, "Night-night. Do you want Norah to come out and say goodnight, too?"

Mark and Jill exchanged uneasy glances, and Mary just wagged her head, leaving it up to Marshall to take care of that minor detail.

"Let's leave Norah be," he suggested, trundling back to the bedroom, daughter held aloft the entire time. "If she's reading or studying, we don't want to disturb her."

And with Alice waggling her fingers over her father's shoulder, trying to climb over his back like a monkey, the duo finally departed, leaving Mary alone with her ex-husband and his significant other. She'd said very little since they'd shown up, and she didn't see why she should start now. They were the ones with the news, not her, and she knew that they weren't going to be able to avoid it much longer. As soon as Marshall came back – and who knew when that would be – all bets were off. It was time to put up or shut up.

"Sorry about Alice…" Mary felt like an ogre defaming her daughter, but her next words proved why she felt the need to apologize. "She knows better. She just likes an audience."

"Oh, don't worry about it," Jill insisted at once. "I'm used to it – used to kids, that is," she suddenly corrected herself. "You roll with the punches."

This would be good advice for Mary when it came to the metaphorical sack of bricks they were going to lower onto her head, but she wasn't sure it was a philosophy she could adopt. Fortunately for her, Alice must've complied once she was in the bedroom – or else Marshall had bribed her with something – because the chief returned in due time, quietly shutting the door behind him.

"I apologize for the delay…" he announced, making it the second show of remorse in just a few minutes. "Can I get you anything else to eat before I take a seat?" he jerked his thumb at the floor, at which point Jill decided that, guest or not, that she would offer him her place on the couch.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather have my seat?"

She was halfway up when Mark gently guided her back down, "No, really, Marshall; take mine…"

"The floor is good for one's back; I don't mind…"

"Don't be silly…" Jill chattered on, at which point Mary had-had quite enough of all the stalling.

"Oh, please…" she moaned, exhaling so loudly and forcefully that she fluttered her bangs on her forehead. "We cannot dance around this all night," her abruptness earned her a look from Marshall as he ignored all the efforts of chivalry and plunked himself back on the carpet. "I'm not saying we don't enjoy your company, but really…" it was interesting how 'really' could indicate so much. "What are you doing here?"

Their silence alone proved that they knew they'd been beating around the bush, as did the covert looks they gave one another.

Mark's eyes were slightly fretful, their brown more youthful and childlike whenever he was concerned. But, Jill seemed a cross between excited and apprehensive, with her short blonde hair – more sun-kissed than Mary's because it was highlighted – and bright hazel orbs; she was clearly dying to spill the beans. Mary just wasn't sure they were beans she wanted to be force-fed; especially if she couldn't feasibly spit them out if she didn't like how they tasted.

"I guess we're not hiding much, are we?" Mark eventually said with a weak chuckle. "Sorry about the hem-and-haw; just…it isn't something I – we – wanted to blurt out…"

Up close, Mary could see that his forehead was shiny from perspiration, which was another clue to his edginess. She watched as Jill placed a hand on his forearm to calm him, no doubt to insist he was making a big deal out of nothing. Personally, his ex-wife felt he probably had good reason to be cautious, but she settled for observing and nothing more.

"Mark, don't be so dramatic…" Jill murmured, verifying Mary's theory, scarcely feeling the way Marshall had begun to rub her toes. "You don't want me thinking you're getting cold feet, do you?"

He gave a short laugh at this, but Mary felt every capillary in her body begin to tingle.

Cold feet? Cold feet about _what?_ The term itself was typically reserved for something Mary had once longed to avoid. Something she had denied Marshall for many-many years. Something she never would've engaged in had her husband in the here and now not pushed her in face-first and her eldest daughter hadn't run away at the prospect of losing her makeshift, nuclear family…

Suddenly, all those old misgivings about anything associated with 'cold feet' came rushing back to the forefront, and it wasn't even the inspector who was being asked to stand under an altar.

"You know I'm not…" Mark was saying under his breath. "You know this isn't about us; it's about Norah…"

"Of course I know that, but who better to help us with the transition than these two?"

"I understand that, it's just that…"

"You know, Mark…" Marshall unexpectedly raised his voice over their hushed discussion, no doubt sensing his wife's agitation that they wouldn't do what they needed to do and be done with it. "Norah is our common thread, and if there is anything Mary or I can do to smooth things over when it comes to…"

"We're getting married."

Mark spit it into the air, in exactly the fashion he had claimed he wanted to evade. And, even though Mary had known it was coming for the past few minutes, she still felt a certain measure of surprise at the phrase swirling among them. Add on the way Mark and Jill suddenly clasped hands and peered at the already-wedded couple, poised for a reaction, and she felt like she was in some bad movie of the week. This was not real. It couldn't be.

Mary had one thought and one thought only, and it was nothing along the lines of jealousy; if she had ever been attracted to Mark, that spark had fizzled out eons ago. No, it was on Norah that she was centered, and even without Mark's and Jill's trepidation, she would've known instantly that her child was not going to be a fan of this.

More than that, Mary had an uncomfortable feeling that Norah wasn't just going to recoil from the idea, but truly loathe it. Had she known it was coming? Was this an explanation for why she had flipped out about Jill showing her face earlier in the day – why she 'hated' going to her father's house?

But, all of this was too much to consider at the moment, and it was due to Marshall's ingrained politeness that she knew she was going to have to buck up and deliver the obligatory best wishes.

"That is fantastic!" the taller of the two men boasted, jumping up at once, at which point Mark and Jill did the same. "How utterly joyous. What could be better?"

Mary could think of plenty of things, but she had to admire Marshall's ability to always see the good, even as she slowly got to her feet as he swapped hugs with the happy couple.

"Congratulations…congratulations all around…" he slapped Mark's back and laid a kiss on Jill's cheek. "When is the big day? Have you chosen a venue? If you haven't contacted a wedding planner, I highly recommend Brandi."

Shaky laugher accompanied this pronouncement, "Thank-you, Marshall," Jill bestowed, her cheeks turning pink at his enthusiasm. "Nothing is set in stone yet. We're looking at June – maybe July, depending on when we can book the church…"

"Spring or early summer; an ideal time for nuptials…"

This was a man who had met his bride at the end of the aisle in the middle of a bitterly cold February, but why split hairs?

"How did he pop the question?" Marshall was such a girl, wanting all the details, but he was probably trying to cover up Mary being so mum, standing with her arms crossed. "Was it a bended knee endeavor?"

"Um…a little more casual," Jill tittered. "But, it got the job done," she threw a glowing look toward her husband-to-be. "I…I hope this doesn't come as, you know, a…" swallowing hard. "…A…complete shock…although, we have been keeping it quiet. We just didn't want to dump it on anyone until we were ready; Norah's had a lot of change lately…"

While Marshall babbled onward with Jill, no doubt feeling fervent about the wedding to come, because he was such a nerd about such things, Mark slipped away, and Mary knew he was coming for her. He had to be wondering why she had yet to speak, why she was being so stand-offish, when on any other occasion she honestly would've been happy for him. She wished she could cajole her mouth to form the right words, to be diplomatic and civil, but all she could think of was Norah, and she knew she would be none of those things.

Hands in his pockets, shrugging sheepishly, Mark approached while his ex managed a half-smile, waiting for him to kick things off.

"I'm gonna be off the market soon," he joked feebly. "Bet you thought you'd never live to see the day."

Her throat feeling oddly papery, Mary did what she could do strike up some semblance of their old rapport.

"I admit I thought hell would freeze over first."

"Don't I at least get a, 'good luck, old man?'" he requested, pretending to mope as he said it.

"Yeah…" Mary breathed laboriously. "Yeah…I guess you've earned it…" she hunched her shoulders indifferently. "Growing up after all these years…"

This wasn't an insult he would buy, not with how close they'd become over the last thirteen years, but it was standard when it came to their relationship. He was forever supposed to pretend that she was cranky and cagey, and she had to feign he was just a silly little boy. Both knew the other had grown immeasurably, and if Mary's initiated hug didn't prove it, then nothing would.

Chin over his shoulder, because she'd always been taller than him, linking her arms over his back, she felt him reciprocate, knowing it wasn't coldness that had made her hold back. He seemed to get that she was as uneasy as he was when it came to their daughter, and Mary felt suddenly sad that what should've been a happy time for him was riddled with doubt.

"Congrats…" she whispered anyway, idly running her fingers up and down his back. "And all that."

"Thanks, kid…" Mark inched away, not wanting to overdo it on all the touching and sentiment. "Not gonna mince words, huh?"

"No…it's great news; it really is…"

"Come on, we both know why you're all fidgety," he imitated her awkward stance. "You're worried about the grenade that is our child," this statement made him sound like Marshall, but Mary didn't say so.

"Does she…?" the only way to figure out what Mark was expecting was to ask him. "Do you think she has the faintest idea that this is going to happen? Any clues – any at all?"

"I don't know," he stated baldly, throwing a quick glance to Jill, and then peering around Mary's form to see to it that Norah's door was still closed. "She's so tough to read anymore…"

"Right," Mary agreed. "Right…" but, her voice tapered away as she chewed on her lip, unable to shake the image of their girl lying in wait in her bedroom, keeping Alice awake, dying to know what was going on with all of her mutual parents. "I'm not trying to do the whole 'rain on your parade' thing here, but…"

"But, it's inevitable."

"Big word for you."

Mark ignored her, "Maybe it won't be as bad as we think," he was far more optimistic than Mary, that was for sure, but she could tell by his eyes that he was lying even to himself. "After all, she likes Jill, right? And, she's not like those kids that are pining for their parents to be together, so that'll be no problem…"

"That's true," Mary mumbled, leaving out whether or not her daughter was partial to the woman who would soon become her step-mother. "She's never had the slightest desire for us to be a couple. Knows what's good for her, right?"

Mark gave a short laugh, "Smart enough to know we're better off apart."

"But, still…"

"No, I know…"

"I mean, this is different from me and Marshall – we've known that since day one."

"I agree…" his concurrence was half-hearted, at best, because he was hoping for better. "Marshall's been around her whole life and Jill, well…"

"Hasn't," Mary supplied, though Mark certainly didn't need the reminder. "And, I'm not sure if whether she likes her or not will even factor in. The change just might be too big for her – we have to be prepared for anything."

"Believe me, I know…" he sighed tiredly, running a hand over his buzzed haircut and seemingly thinking hard. "Jill and I have been turning this thing front-to-back, trying to figure out the best way to approach Norah…"

"And, you needed to call in the big guns, right?" Mary would give herself credit where it was due; being the mom, she would hold as much clout as humanly possible. "The reinforcements?"

"More or less."

It was funny how their conversational style was almost as abbreviated as Mary's and Marshall's these days; both had gotten pretty good at knowing what the other was thinking before they even opened their mouths. And while they might clash sometimes, they had always wanted to present a united front to Norah so she couldn't play one parent against the other. Operating as a team would be essential when it came to the notion that her family was about to expand in size yet again.

"Look…" Mary exhaled, trying to block out the easy flow of the discussion Marshall and Jill were having without them. "Give me a chance to talk to Marshall tonight, okay? You'll be back tomorrow afternoon to get Norah and then maybe we can…"

"Lower the boom?" Mark finished for her, darkly but with a grim smile. "Are you sure you want to do it that soon?"

"How long have you been sitting on this?" she proposed shrewdly, narrowing her eyebrows. "If Jill wants to start wearing an engagement ring, we need to get moving – give Norah time to get used to the idea."

But, Mary had a nasty, sinking suspicion that it might take her daughter all the way until the proposed wedding in the spring to 'get used to the idea' of her father marrying another woman, and even then she might still have reservations. A selfish part of the mother wanted to chastise Mark for unloading such a life-altering event when Norah's existence was constantly punctuated with upsets. But, there was no telling how many months – maybe even years – he and Jill had hung on. It was highly likely they'd been waiting for Norah to mellow out before saying the big 'I do' but knew that they couldn't continue to put things on hold. Painful as it was, their teenager was going to have to learn to adapt.

And, as though he were reading Mary's thoughts as she stood and tapped her foot impatiently, Mark displayed a hint of anxiousness at getting his marriage underway, and sooner rather than later.

"I…I'd be willing to push the actual wedding out another year or so, but the way things are headed, I'm not sure that's going to work…"

Pure curiosity made the woman inquire, "What do you mean?"

"Well, Jill's just…"

But, then he stopped, taking his time to toss her a backward glance once more. It was several seconds before he completed his thought, Mary growing more bewildered by the second as he roved up and down Jill's frame. Whatever he expected to see or glean, she couldn't know.

"No, I just…" he finally shook his head and got back to Mary, apparently deciding against elaborating on what he was thinking. "If…if we wait that long, Jill will be getting ready for the new school year and…" another pause before he wrapped things up. "And…it'll be better to do it once all the kids are done with school – have the summer to regroup…"

He sent Mary a would-be-innocent smile, but something about his demeanor was troubling her. All of his reasons for aiming for June were sound and logical, and yet she wasn't entirely sure they were his reasons. And Mary, already on edge, didn't have the patience for guessing games.

"Is there something else I need to be aware of?" she spit out. "Because…"

But, Mark interrupted, "Trust me; making Norah aware of the wedding is job one. We can deal with everything else as it comes."

But, whatever 'everything else' was, Mary knew without a doubt that she didn't want to find out.

XXX

 **A/N: Marriage! What next? Thank-you for the reviews, lovelies!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: No Mary in this chapter! I have a hard time writing ones without her, so hopefully this one holds up.**

XXX

The following day, which happened to be one of the coldest thus far in October – even if it was still sunny – Marshall found himself journeying to the dance studio to pick up Alice. Mary was stuck at the office consulting with Stan, and so he had been enlisted to fetch the younger daughter from her afternoon lesson with Lia, which was perfectly fine with him. He enjoyed the chill breeze that rustled the tops of the orange-colored trees, fall in full bloom, the warm colors bursting on every corner. The jaunt from his car to the studio itself also gave him some alone time to think, something he had not had much of since bidding farewell to Mark and Jill the evening prior.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Noah hadn't seemed to pick up on anything concerning her father and eventual step-mother. For the moment, this was a good thing, as it meant they weren't going to have to spend excess energy keeping the secret from her. On the other hand, if the news was truly going to come as a bombshell to her, that meant she was going to blindsided, and Marshall didn't look forward to that. Once he collected Alice, they were set to return to the house, at which point he would be physically present for the big conversation, if not emotionally. Mary and Mark, as Norah's parents, could handle that.

When he reached the studio, formerly Jinx's palace, Marshall took in his surroundings momentarily before going all the way inside, especially since the day was so bright and crisp.

What had once been a single room location, just big enough for a solitary ballet class, had now been expanded across two store fronts. When Lia had taken over the space three years earlier, she had haggled brilliantly with the struggling nail salon next door to covet their extra yardage. The minute they'd gone out of business, she'd pounced; a wall had been knocked out, the lease had been signed, and now there was room for two sessions to take place at once. It was nothing fancy, but Marshall knew Jinx would've been thrilled to see the business expanding.

There was a half-wall between classrooms, if you could call them that, Lia's lessons taking place on the left, which weren't visible from the outside window. On the right was the original space where ballet was still taught; one of Lia's dancing comrades had taken up the post after the first year. Sharp, eagle-eyed, and a strict disciplinarian, Darcy or "Ms. Morrow" as the girls were instructed to call her, could not have been more opposite of Stan's wife. She was largely the reason that Alice had given up ballet and stuck to Lia's more fun-loving classes.

But, at least one of the girls in Marshall's life had been drawn to Ms. Morrow's more direct methods of instruction, or else she was more interested in carrying on Jinx's legacy. Robyn was twirling around on her toes, her uncle watching from the sidewalk, and realizing he wouldn't have to hang around waiting for Alice by himself. Brandi was just inside the door, observing her own child's tutorial.

Stepping through the door where a bell tinkled overhead, he attracted his sister-in-law's attention at once and she waggled her fingers from where she leaned against the wall.

"Hi…" she murmured quietly, trying not to disturb Ms. Morrow. "Is Alice next door? I didn't even see her…"

"She should just be finishing up," Marshall informed her. "Doesn't Robyn have another hour to go?" he had the timetable pretty well memorized.

"She forgot her cell phone at the house when I dropped her by for a quick snack," Brandi explained her presence. "Don't think I won't hear about all the texts she might've missed if I didn't drop it by."

"Right," Marshall chuckled. "I'm sure she'll catch your eye in a minute…"

"Oh, I already let her know that I left it in her bag – pissed off Darcy," she whispered stealthily. "Interrupting the lessons is a faux pas," shaking her head. "But, I just like watching her – Robyn I mean. She reminds me so much of mom."

And, indeed, in spite of the fact that Robyn was devoid of brunette waves and strikingly porcelain skin, her build and the way she carried herself – especially when dancing – was uncanny of her late grandmother. She had the same slight hips, the same pointed toes, the same flexibility, even the same look on her face that Jinx had often sported when in the middle of a pose. She was fully and completely committed to the passion that was the dance, when Marshall knew that most girls her age had long since given up ballet.

At the moment, she was holding a position, arms held aloft over her head, her slippers exactly on point, waiting to be told when to move to the next stance. Even as a little girl, when she had-had copious amounts of energy, she had always calmed once she was out on the floor – a performer, through and through.

"Come on, though…we'd better go outside…" Brandi finally said when they'd gazed long enough, Marshall becoming as invested as the mother was. "Darcy's going to read me the riot act if I stick around and Robyn won't hesitate to mention that I'm mortifying her…"

With another chortle, thinking that Alice would surely see him when she came bounding out after her own lesson, Marshall led the way back onto the street, Brandi right behind him. Safe from the wrath of Darcy the Dancer, the blonde shot her brother-in-law a more natural smile now that they could speak freely, arching her spine against the brick of the building so her back was to the seminar they had just walked out of.

"How are you, Marshall?" she asked cordially, squinting against the sun that hung over the rooftops in the distance. "It was so wild at the house the other night; I didn't get to say two words to you."

"Mondays are tough," he acknowledged, remembering the evening of the baked potatoes and chaos he had stumbled in on. "But…status quo, I would say. From what I can gather when I'm around, Robyn and Max seem to be flourishing. Although, getting Max to talk about what he's doing is kind of an ordeal, but…"

Brandi finished his thought for him, "Yeah, my little baker…" she raked her fingers through her blonde tresses and grinned fondly. "He seems to like third grade, though. They don't treat the kids like their babies so much anymore…"

"Yes, I seem to recall when Norah got to be that age," Marshall reminisced, slipping his sunglasses off his shirt collar and perching them on his nose. "Her independence was something to be admired, at least in the educational world – glad not to have to hold hands anymore, so to speak."

"Well, Max is the same way," Brandi decided. "But, I tell his teacher to keep a close watch on him just to be safe. He might do well on his own, but I don't want him to be left behind."

"Understandable," the man reciprocated. "Being self-governing doesn't mean one doesn't need companionship."

She giggled at his flowery wording, "Something like that, yeah." And then she continued, "It still cracks me up that he's so studious and stuff. You couldn't have paid me to work when I was his age, and with Robyn it's like pulling teeth."

"Too much to talk about with her peers," Marshall decided with a knowing smirk. "No time left for arithmetic."

"I don't even want to know what goes on in the locker room."

He was about to say that Robyn, at least, wasn't having any part of the locker room as a sixth grader; it was a luxury she wouldn't be afforded until the next year. But, mention of such a place reminded him of Norah and her unwashed gym clothes, and any kind of musings about his step-daughter led him back to the discussion that was not far away. It seemed his mind was not allowed to stray for long, and he suddenly wondered if Brandi had been made privy to the most recent development. She and Mark were friends too, after all.

"Speaking of the grapevine…" he segued gradually, moving so he was beside Brandi instead of in front of her, which made her turn on her side to look at him more closely. "…I can't say this has spread via the locker room, but nonetheless…" he cleared his throat before moving forward. "Have you heard about Mark?"

Judging by the perceptive smirk that spread from the woman's cheeks to her chin, she knew plenty – probably more than Marshall. For as much as he had always liked Brandi, there would've been a time the chief never would've dared confide even a morsel of gossip in her, because she couldn't be trusted to keep it to herself. Now, with the kids around, she had learned what to keep in the vault, and he was grateful.

Sighing and standing up straight once more, "Mary told me this morning – doesn't want Norah finding out accidentally, I guess."

"Another wedding," he remarked, trying to picture the scene and finding he couldn't, not with Norah out of the loop. "When was the last one, anyway?"

"Stan and Lia, wasn't it?"

"I suppose so…"

"Yeah, but not everybody made it to that one," Brandi pointed out. "Stan was still in DC then – it was just you and Mary and the girls that flew out for it, right?"

"That's right…" he nodded soundly. "Alice was two – Norah was about eight. That was a long flight," concluding with a low whistle.

This earned him a throaty chuckle, "I guess before that it was my own…" she passed on a sheepish smile this time and shrugged her shoulders. "Better late than never, right?"

"No Alice around for that one…"

"No Max either."

"Heavens, that's right," it was amazing to Marshall how fast time passed when you weren't watching the clock, and he scratched the back of his head vaguely as though thinking back so far was straining his brain. "Well, that will make Mark's and Jill's nuptials extra-special, then – a true family affair; kids and adults alike."

"Mary's going to love that," Brandi guffawed. "Norah too. I hope you're ready."

This was said with an air that she believed nothing could properly prepare Marshall, and she was probably right. Nonetheless, work had readied him to run into situations blind, but it was a lot easier when witnesses were collateral damage as a result of unsettling news, and not someone he cared so deeply about.

"I find it ironic that something as simple as one's familial relations can be just as intimidating, if not more so, than dealing with criminals," he voiced what he was thinking, cooled further by the shade created by the overhang above the studio. "Who knew, right?"

"Mark better watch himself then," Brandi decided, a brutal glint in her eye. "Mary having a gun isn't going to bode well for him if Norah freaks about he and Jill."

"She was actually very accepting, I'll have you know," he informed her proudly, although he knew she was only teasing about her sister's ability to load her glock, ready to fire. "But, you know how it is. She and Norah aren't exactly attached at the hip quite like they used to be, but their mind-meld still exists. She doesn't want things to be harder for her than they already are."

"I feel like I've dodged a bullet myself most days, Marshall…" Brandi admitted with an airy sigh. "I see Norah struggle and it's like I just got lucky that Robyn isn't going through the same thing…"

"Give it time," he smirked deviously and received a matching one in return. "She still has at least seven more years of adolescence to come."

"Don't remind me!" she squealed with a playful smack to his bicep. "And anyway, at least she and Max don't have to go through the whole divided household thing. I'm not saying Norah doesn't adore you, Marshall – you know she does – but you know that switching back and forth at her age has to get super old…"

"Yes…" his tone was quiet, knowing the woman spoke the truth. "It would appear that way. She and Mary got into it yesterday and evidently she 'hates' going to stay with Mark…"

"That's not good."

"Yes, but I like to think the term 'hate' is kind of a placeholder when you're thirteen. It loses some of its cruelty, don't you think?" Seeing the perplexed look on the blonde's face, he soldiered on, "If you talk to Norah, she hates everything – school, dinner, the television, the weather, her clothes, Alice…"

It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself, and he instantly regretted his run-on sentence even though his daughter was not around to hear him. Thus far, he had not actually heard Norah articulate her loathing toward her baby sister, but from the way she behaved around her, it had to be implied. The pair of them had always been masters at sniping at one another, a classic case of sibling rivalry. Alice constantly insisted that Norah was bossy and mean, whereas the elder girl bemoaned Alice's immaturity and whining – more specifically, that she always seemed to get her way. Marshall exerted as much effort as possible to be fair-minded, but there was never any convincing Norah.

And, it wasn't until this very moment that he realized how sad their relationship made him. He thought back to when Mary had been pregnant, and while Norah had never been enraptured with the idea of a sibling, she had seemed accepting enough. And yet, it was once in a blue moon that they really and truly got along – on their best days, they ignored each other; it was depressing that this had become the norm.

His discontent must've showed on his face, because Brandi suddenly laid a finger on his forearm to get his attention, blinking sweetly and sympathetically up into his face.

"Marshall, the girls don't hate each other…" she whispered, her voice similar to the breeze circling around them. "You can't really think that."

"I don't know…" he began wearily, but she stopped him in his tracks.

"Listen, Marshall…" using his name twice meant that she really wanted him to concentrate on what she was saying, and he was reminded of how much more forceful she'd become since she'd become a mother twelve years earlier. "I know you're, like, a genius…" she paused to allow him a modest smile. "But, you have no clue about sisters. You should've _seen_ me and Mary as kids. Oh, Jesus…" even as she smiled at the memories. "We were just as bad if not way- _way_ worse than Norah and Alice."

"I can be sure of that," he trusted her tale, and still felt the need to explain his viewpoint. "But, is it wrong of me to think that you two had more to butt heads over? I mean, your dad was gone, and you're poles apart…"

"Aren't Norah and Alice?" Brandi laughed her sandpapery chortle, almost as though her brother-in-law were being dense about the children's personalities. "It is seriously eerie how much Norah is like Mary when she was a teenager – I speak from experience."

The man opened his mouth to respond, to continue his gentle argument, but he realized that what Brandi was sharing with him was very enlightening. It would be foolish to interrupt now, especially when he needed all the help he could get when it came to his step-daughter. In any case, it seemed she wasn't done with her comparisons anyway.

"And, I know Mary and I didn't do the whole 'blended family' thing because mom never remarried – at least not until we met Scott and Lauren – but, when you think about it, some parts are exactly the same…"

"How do you mean?"

"Well," a swallow before the rest of her theory. "For a long time it was just you and Mary and Norah, right? It was like that for Mary before I was born – just her and mom and dad," this was logical. "And then I showed up and dad left and things went down the drain." If Brandi was still harboring any sort of resentment about this, it certainly didn't show. "I mean, that's definitely not what happened when you and Mary had Alice, but she's always had the 'traditional' family – kind of. And Norah hasn't – just like Mary didn't when we were kids."

True, not all of the parallels were the same, but the chief had to admire how neatly Brandi had pieced the two scenarios together. He'd never much thought of Norah's childhood as akin to Mary's because she'd had more than enough parents and relatives to go around. But, the concept of normalcy had ended for her very early on, whereas Alice had a mother and a father forever in the same house, no need to bounce between, no new members dropping in whenever they pleased and being forced to accept them.

It was no wonder Norah was feeling off-kilter lately, especially when being 'ordinary' was what passed for 'cool' in middle school. The understanding Marshall had suddenly gained was heartening, but with it came the sad realization that her world was about to be rocked yet again. Mark's marriage was going to plunge her off a cliff one more time.

"I suppose there's no denying that there are pitfalls from living in a mixed family, even when everyone gets along," he eventually commented. "I admit, though, that I never thought of it as being a hassle for Norah, especially when she lives with Alice and Alice hasn't had the same push and pull…"

"I'm sure it'll blow over, Marshall; once she gets her bearings with the Jill thing…"

He had severe doubts about this happening, but at that moment he shook his head and made a shushing motion, because he had spotted his twittering little girl crashing through the glass door, class concluded at last. She was wearing bright turquoise sweatpants and a white tank-top, her brunette coils falling down her neck where they had once been in a ponytail. Her backpack, hanging half off her shoulder, was unzipped, as if she had raced out of jiving without a second thought.

"Hi daddy!" Alice exclaimed exuberantly. And then, spotting her aunt, "Hi Brandi! I saw Robyn in the mirror inside – she looked all frowny!"

"That's just her 'serious' face, honey," Brandi assured her. "You know how Ms. Morrow is – you don't mess with her."

"She's mean!" the child declared stoutly. "She always yelled at me when I was in her class. Jinx wouldn't have liked that; she'd have told her not to yell at people!"

"Not 'mean…'" Marshall corrected politely, referring to Darcy. "Just stern – she means business and likes to get her work done. I would hope that Jinx would appreciate that."

"Well, I don't think so," Alice's mind was made up.

Privately, the father felt that his daughter probably did not really recall what her grandmother would've approved of and what she wouldn't. She'd only been four when Jinx had died, and so her memories were likely limited. But, Robyn talked about her so much still that it was completely plausible she was manufacturing her cousin's recollections into some of her own.

Now wasn't the time to talk about this, though, as they had more important matters to attend to. Therefore, he bypassed Alice's feelings about Ms. Morrow and tried to herd her in the direction of the car.

"Where is your jacket?" he asked, even as he watched her sweat in the nippy autumn air. "Did you leave it at school again?"

"It's in my bag…" Alice whirled around to show him the open hatch. "I don't need it – it's not cold."

"You only say that because you've been inside dancing your little heart away," Marshall assumed. "Put it on. And next time, make sure you zip this up…" he retrieved the cover from inside and handed it to her so she could wear it. "We don't want you losing your schoolwork."

"It's hot!" Alice continued to protest, letting her coat fall onto the sidewalk. "See!" she spread her arms wide and gave a little twirl on the pavement, perhaps to show that she wasn't shivering even though her shirt was sleeveless. "I don't even have goose bumps!"

"Just the same…"

"Really-really hot…!" she was petitioning hard for this, but whatever the temperature actually was, the issue was about to blown clean out of Marshall's head. "Hotter than hell!"

He could tell instantly that Brandi was somewhere between horrified and amused that her little niece had said such a thing – a reluctant grin twitched at the corners of her mouth, but her eyes were grave. No doubt she felt 'lucky' once again that she didn't have a child spouting profanity in the first grade. And, while Marshall didn't especially enjoy being tough on his daughter, he had already told her that she wasn't to walk around using such words. Doing it in public was a step up. What if she started doing it at school?

"Alice, that's enough," he didn't raise his voice, but the smirk on her face told him she'd sworn on purpose just to get a reaction. "Am I smiling? Do I look like I think this is funny?"

"No…" but, now her grin was sweetened, like she was hoping a look of innocence might get her by.

"You are being inappropriate," he told her firmly. "There are people who are offended when you use those words, and it is rude. You are not rude, and you know better."

"Okay…" she sighed dispiritedly. "But, did I at least use it right? The word? Did I use it right? Because…"

"Never mind," Marshall cut her off. "We need to get home; mom's picking up Norah and we need to meet them there."

Grumbling, but accepting her fate, Alice finally rescued her jacket from the ground and handed the man her backpack so she could put it on as instructed. He knew this wasn't the end of her proclivity for blurting out obscene phrases – obscene for a six-year-old, anyway – but they had bigger fish to fry. Her little slip-up had almost caused him to forget about what was coming with Norah, and it was Brandi who brought him back.

"Marshall, do you want me to come along?" she mumbled, quietly enough so that Alice couldn't hear in case the plan went awry. "I have some time before Robyn gets out of class, and if you're going to talk to Norah, you're going to need someone to keep an eye on…" her gaze swiveled down to her niece, the spitting image of Jinx.

Marshall had resigned himself to keeping the little sister busy so Mary, Mark, Jill, and Norah could have some privacy, but with Brandi along he could be more involved in the conversation. They would need all hands on deck, right?

"Are you sure you don't mind?" latching onto the suggestion at once.

"No problem," she squeezed his elbow. "Come on, sweetheart," she added to Alice. "When we get home, you can take me out in the backyard and show me that jive Lia's teaching you…"

"I'm supposed to show Mark!"

"Well, Mark may have to see it later…"

Yes, Marshall thought as he trailed absently after the pair down the sidewalk. Promises or not, Mark was going to have his hands full with his own daughter. The chief imagined that, by the end of this day, Mark was going to be wishing his biggest problem was a little girl that talked about the fires of hell and found it hysterical.

XXX

 **A/N: Thanks to everyone who is reading and/or reviewing! Would love to hear what you think!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I got a few new reviews last night – thank-you so much! I didn't realize this chapter was as long as it is, but hopefully it will keep your interest enough to the end. :)**

XXX

The unfairness of it all had to be maddening, Mary thought.

'It' referred to the way Norah had been plopped down in her own living room, as though for an intervention, with little to no warning as to what was coming. But, the set-up couldn't have been encouraging in the least, and by the look on Norah's face, she wasn't anything close to cheered.

Mark and Jill were poised side-by-side on the couch, in almost the exact same spots they'd been in the night before. Mark was trying to smile, but he was starting to look as though he had lockjaw, and settled for impassive after a few minutes. Jill did manage a somewhat natural-looking grin, but Mary watched as she wrung her hands in her lap as a way to release her pent-up tension. Norah sat in front of them on the coffee table, undoubtedly feeling as though she were stuck in some garish spotlight.

Knowing she needed to be present for moral support, but feeling extremely awkward and out-of-place, Mary was back in the armchair, gnawing on her thumbnail and attempting to be inconspicuous. She was there only if Norah needed her, if she had questions, or even if she became angry, which she was so prone to doing. Hunched down so far she was almost on the floor, the mother was fast-beginning to regret her decision to be in the fray, although this was a big moment. Like it or not, Mark's wedding was going to alter all of their lives, for better or for worse.

Nonetheless, Mary still wished she had Marshall by her side, but he had set up camp in the kitchen, pretending to read the newspaper, when in reality she knew he had his ears perked for every word to come. In the yard, Brandi and Alice were frolicking the afternoon away, and a certain measure of trust was put into the younger Shannon sister to keep her niece from intruding. Marshall was torn between glimpsing his daughter and her aunt doing a series of dance steps in the grass and listening to the conversation about to take place in the living room.

Still, he found his eye strayed more often toward the engaged duo, one half of which was catching his attention for a reason he couldn't quite pinpoint. Jill was as relaxed as one could expect at the moment, but there was something about her usual laid-back persona that was different. Normally very polite, she had devoured almost half the bowl of potato chips the host had set out, and before anybody else could get their hands on them. This didn't tally with the way she had continually refused the wedges of cheese from the night before, almost like she had been watching her weight.

But, far more than her eating habits, it was her demeanor that was striking him so – or else her appearance. She was as svelte and as slim as she always was – at least from Marshall's angle – but her face was more rounded than usual, and there was something shiny about it as well. Perhaps she was perspiring because she was nervous? That didn't explain why certain features of hers seemed to have ballooned up.

This was a mystery that was going to have to wait, however, because it seemed Norah's patience had been tried long enough.

"Did somebody die?" she blurted out into the silence, which caused Mary to look up from her slouched position to lock eyes with her husband. "What's going on? Why are you here so early?" she meant Mark. "And why is Jill with you?"

It was apparent that Norah was exercising all her self-control not to sound horribly contemptuous toward her soon-to-be step-mother, but light disdain still snuck its way in. Again, Marshall, at least, read this as odd, because he'd never known Norah and Jill to argue or butt heads. But, given the way Norah butted heads with most people these days; it wasn't so implausible that her father's girlfriend was on her hit list as well.

"Nobody died," Mark promised, working in a shaky chuckle. "I don't want you to think…"

"Because, this is what Marshall and Peter did when Jinx died," Norah interrupted with a less-than-happy memory, which earned the chief another narrowed-eyed glance from his wife. "They made me and Robyn and Max and Alice sit down right here – right where you're sitting now – and they told us she was dead," this reasoning was actually fairly sound, but fortunately this news was nothing so tragic. "How do I know grandma didn't die this time or something?"

"Grandma's fine," Mark clearly hadn't expected this kind of a dark prediction and hastened to ease these particular worries. "Everybody's fine. Jill and I just had something we wanted to tell you, and we thought it was best if we had a few minutes to ourselves to talk about it…"

"If you think Alice is going to stay outside forever, you're crazy."

"I hope this won't take forever," Jill finally spoke. "But, if we need to talk longer for some reason, then maybe you and your dad and I can go out to dinner…"

Norah did not look at all endeared by this idea, "Talk about _what?_ Is this about school or something? What'd I do this time?"

"You didn't do anything, Bug," Mary interjected, not able to imagine that her daughter wasn't growing extremely agitated as a result of all this hem-and-haw. "Mark…" she turned to her ex, still chewing on what was becoming a nasty hangnail. "Come on. This cat isn't going to let itself out of the bag."

She did not urge him to hurry up so she could look like the more compassionate parent in this scenario, but because she knew he needed to get over his jitters and be done with it. The longer they waited, the more annoyed the teenager was going to become, which was proven when she whipped around to face her mother at her last words.

"You all are keeping secrets from me?" she accused at once, blinking fast in Mary's direction. "What is this? If I'm not in trouble then what's going on? It isn't fair that I have to sit here and listen to all this when Alice gets to go play outside like she _always_ does…"

"All right, listen, Norah…" Mark could clearly see her frustration mounting and took Mary's suggestion to heart. Pitching forward so that his elbows were on his knees, "I'm sorry about this, but it's new for us too; we're figuring it out as we go…"

"I don't even know what you're talking about!" she exploded, throwing up her hands, which caused Marshall to inch a little further forward in his seat, to be more of a presence. "What is this even about?"

And such a question provided the segue they all needed, "It's about me and Jill," Mark finally confessed, and Mary saw him swallow so hard that a lump went down his throat. "You and me and Jill."

Norah's eyelashes fluttered as she took in his tiny bit of insight, scooting a little further backward on the coffee table so she was not quite so close to her father. She threw an uncertain, wide-eyed look toward Jill at the mention of her name, but then focused on Mark once more. Her mother could tell by the roundness of her dark eyes that she wanted to know what was happening, and yet was afraid of what it was all at the same time.

"You know that Jill and I love each other very much…"

Hearing it described as such made Mary cringe. Norah was not four; she did not need to have a relationship wrapped up in a bow like Mark had just tried to deliver it to her.

"We have for a long time now…"

"Not as long as mom and Marshall."

She knows, Mary thought. How or why this single statement of her daughter's was so revealing, she couldn't have said for sure. But, it was definitely telling. Mary's and Marshall's marriage was acceptable due to their longevity, at least according to Norah in this very moment. On the other hand, it could simply be an excuse to deny that Mark and Jill belonged together when her suspicions were confirmed.

Mark did his best to take the remark in stride.

"Well, no; mom and Marshall have known each other close to twenty years. Sometimes it takes that long for people to fall in love, and other times it happens faster…"

"Norah, I care so much about your dad…" if Jill thought this was a good time to break in, Mary thought she must be feeling gutsy, but the child only stared. "Just like I care about you. I mean, if I'm being honest, I never thought I'd want to be with someone who already had kids of his own, but _both_ of you showed me how wrong I was to think that way…" the truth might gain her a little bit of leeway, but not much. "You two are a package deal, you know? Your dad wouldn't be the same man that I love without you…"

For as close as they were to the heart of the matter, Mary really thought Norah might go off the rails at any second. Her eyes were flashing so fast between Mark and Jill that they were a blur. The ingrained instinct in her – the part of her that was all Mary – was disgusted by this flowery speech and she was longing to tell the pair to shut up and get on with it.

Fortunately, Mark must've been able to read the look too, because he cut across Jill to reach the point.

"The thing is, Norah…" there was a finality in his voice now that seemed to frighten his daughter, but she didn't say anything. "I'm sure that I never want to be apart from Jill – and I know she feels the same way. We want to be a family…"

"We…who?" Norah murmured in a small voice.

"The three of…" he began, but then stopped midsentence and turned around. "…All…all of us."

From his spot in the kitchen, Marshall registered something about the construction of this phrasing. Why not stick with 'the three of us?' Isn't that what Mark, Jill, and Norah would be? A brand new unit of three?

"What does that mean?" the voice of the girl was softer than a whisper, and Mary quit nibbling on her nail, knowing they were seconds away.

"Well, since we want to be a family…" Mark barreled on, his cheeks turning red. "The next step for me and Jill…in our relationship…" it was probably surreal for him to be referencing such a thing to his teenage daughter, but he did his part in finishing. "Is…is to get married. I…I asked Jill and she said yes…" here, the woman hitched on another nervous smile. "So, that's what's going to happen. We're going to get married – Jill will move in and we'll get married."

It was hard to say whether Mary had ever heard a louder silence, especially when she had her eardrums steeled for a deafening detonation. But, Norah was as still as a statue, staring unblinkingly at her father as if she could not have possibly heard correctly.

And yet, in spite of her goggle-eyed gaze, Mary knew that every word had come through crystal clear. The quiet was too significant, too pronounced, and the way Norah would not take her eyes off the fidgeting duo in front of her said plenty.

After a moment or two, the only movement was still a single swallow from the thirteen-year-old, but Mary still wasn't sure she'd fluttered her eyelashes. Marshall didn't have the benefit of seeing her face, and shot a well-timed shrug at Mary, as if to indicate that he needed a little help to figure out what was going on. All his wife could do was hunch her shoulders in return, but then refocused her attentions on her daughter.

Whatever she was thinking, she'd better say it soon because, strange as it was, the suspense was killing her mother. She was sure she'd had her reaction pegged, but the minutes ticked on and still the child would not speak. She didn't even seem to notice the way that Mark and Jill broke stance and took to appealing to Mary in the form of shaking heads, palms in the air. Here, the woman finally decided she needed to get the ball rolling, because the ongoing hush was just too much.

"Norah…" perhaps the use of her name would recall her to present day, as did the way Mary nudged herself to the edge of her chair, hoping to catch her eye. "However you feel is…not a big deal…"

That hadn't come out right. She'd made it sound like her emotions didn't matter, and so she hurried to clear up what she'd meant.

"I'm just saying…you can feel however you want," Mary corrected. "If you're mad or upset or just frustrated – hell, I probably would be, if it were me…" this earned her a skeptical look from Mark, but she ignored him. "Then, you don't have to keep it to yourself. You can say so."

But, for all the attention Norah paid her, she might have been an obnoxious, buzzing fly. The girl shook her head and fluttered her eyelashes, like you might when the sound on the television wasn't working properly. But, she didn't ask to have the volume amped up or to have the most significant portion of the story repeated. In fact, the irritable wag of her head was hardly a step up from her muteness.

Mark must've taken what was usually a gesture of disagreement for just that and seized any opportunity he had to riffle deeper into his daughter's feelings.

"I understand that this is a lot to take in right now…" sympathy was a good tactic, but Mary wasn't sure it would get them very far. "You must feel like your life has been upended quite a bit in the last year, Norah – going to middle school and everything – but, know that Jill and I think this is the right time to…"

"When?"

The single word was sharp and crass, but to the Shannon woman, it was better than nothing. A voice at last. She had schooled her daughter since she was very young to speak up, and now she was. Mary almost relished the slow-building eruption, because then she could feel like she possessed at least some intuition, even if Norah did end up hurting Mark's feelings and ruining his fun.

As it was, the man seemed to stagger even though he was sitting and glanced briefly to Jill to make sure they were on the same page.

"When…what?" he repeated slowly. "When are we getting married?"

He received only a nod.

"Um…June, probably…" again, he conferred with his wife-to-be. "Not before April – July at the latest."

This didn't seem to do much for Norah's temperament, but the information gave Marshall yet another smidgen of insight into the way Jill was acting, because now Mark seemed to be emanating the same qualities. Both had the air of wanting to be forthright and open, but the way they consistently flickered their eyes to one another said to the seasoned chief that they were silently checking their stories. The impending wedding was not the only news they were holding, but Marshall was pretty sure it was the only news they felt Norah could handle today.

By the same token, why was anything prior to an April wedding out of the question? It was feasible there wasn't enough time to plan, but for all Marshall had been privy to, Mark and Jill had been holding off on exchanging vows for some time. Wouldn't it be a case of, the sooner the better, now that they were squealing through the green light?

Whatever the taller man's suspicions, however, he was too curious to hear of the path Norah was going to take next to bother right away.

"Are you gonna…make me…?" the way she wouldn't quit ogling her father and future step-mother was becoming eerie, like she was trying to see all their insides. "…Do I have to be in the wedding?"

At this, Mary frowned. The wedding itself was a silly little ceremony, and not at all conducive to the alteration that her daughter's life was going to take. Why would she focus on the service, of all things?

But, the minute she began to ponder this, she realized exactly why. If she fixated on the nuptials themselves, she wouldn't have to think about what came after. Denial. Like mother, like daughter.

Mark didn't seem prepared for this odd question either, and left it to Jill to explain.

"Well…if you wanted to, I was going to ask you to stand up for me," she wiggled on what she clearly hoped was an inviting smile. "Next to me, you know? Maybe you and Robyn could stand up there together?" perhaps she thought it would sound more appealing if she included the girl who was much more likely to be excited about this marriage. "And, Alice too, if it's all right with your mom and Marshall – we need a flower girl…"

"That's a long way away yet…" Mark interrupted, knowing his daughter would not be a fan of dolling up, nor would she be of including her cousin and sister, since their delight would cloud her mulishness. "But, Norah…" he seemed hungry for more of a reaction. "Things will be different after we get married; like I said, Jill will be moving in…"

"In our house?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "The house she has now is a little bigger than ours…"

"We're _moving?"_

"I didn't say that…"

"But, you said we'd need a bigger house!"

"Well, we will, but…"

"So, then we'll have to move!"

"Not necessarily; I just want you to know that…"

"Our house is big enough – we don't need a bigger one!"

Now things were finally started to rev up, once Norah gathered a little steam, but there was something peculiar about the way she was combating her father. Normally, she would be screaming herself hoarse, but right now she sounded pleading – almost whiny, maybe even sad. One thing was for sure; she didn't sound happy.

"You won't need a bigger house if I don't stay with you anymore!" Norah declared, and Mary was suddenly reminded of her refusal to go even before she'd known about the nuptials. "Maybe you don't even want me there…!"

"We do…!" Mark looked scandalized, and Jill immediately backed him up.

"Norah, of course we do; I-I don't think now was a good time to talk about the house, Mark…it's not fair to spring all this on her at once…"

"You're…you're right…"

But, at that moment, Norah got to her feet, yet it wasn't her typical spring of rage, but a slow and steady climb, where she drew herself up to her full height. This motion indicated she was maybe seconds away from blasting off, and it caused her parents and Jill to follow suit, matching her movements. It was a circular ring, each face staring around at those in front of or beside it. Norah scanned Mark and Jill before landing with a desperate, anguished look in Mary's direction, the others copying her gaze, unsure what to say or do next.

The scene would've been comical from Marshall's vantage point except for something he noticed when Jill was on her feet, where he could see her entire frame from top-to-bottom.

All of a sudden, her rounded face, affinity for snacks, and timeline to get married after those fateful April showers had already passed were explained away in one fell swoop. Add in Mark tripping over himself, being careful not to refer to his relations as 'a family of three' and you might as well sound the alarm right now.

But, Marshall was known for being calm, and was more interested in the rest of the discussion than in spilling any beans – especially if they weren't his beans to spill.

"You must think we're trying to turn everything upside-down…" again, Jill made a solid stab at being empathetic. "I'm sure it's hard – I _know_ it's hard. My parents are divorced…"

Mary saw a look of scorn flit in her daughter's features, because the scenario Jill was presenting, however well-intentioned, was nothing like the teenager's at the moment.

"Families are complicated, Norah. I lost my dad when I was barely twenty years old and it was just me and grandma…" Mark was really going out a limb, because he never spoke about his father. "And, look at mom…"

"You can leave me out of this…" Mary droned, knowing this wasn't her battle to fight.

Mark didn't listen, "Jinx is gone, and you know what she went through when her dad died; think about how she and Brandi grew up, how hard that must've been…"

His ex was seconds away from telling him to shut up, because she couldn't understand where this was going, nor did she enjoy being made an example of, but at that moment the back door opened, making everyone start where they stood. Evidently, Brandi had exhausted all her options with Alice, because they were back, and right in the middle of the fray, too.

Four heads whipped around at the sound of the deck door and Marshall, who was closest, tried to head them off, but he was really no match for Alice.

"I'm just saying, Norah, that no family is perfect, but what you have…"

"Oh God, Marshall; I'm sorry. It seemed like I'd been out a long time, and I was sure they'd be gone by now…"

"Come here, sugar, come back out and show me…"

"Who's here?"

"Nobody; I want to look at…"

"That's Mark – hi Mark!"

"Alice, not now, okay?"

"…Don't you think you're lucky to have so many people around you…?"

"He said he'd look at my dance; I want him to see!"

"…You have four people that are crazy about you – me and mom and Marshall and Jill – not to mention Stan and Lia, your sister, and…"

"I wanna show him NOW!"

Alice's shriek finally quieted Mark's somewhat ill-timed speech about gratitude, but it was also the final straw for Norah, who, instead of hollering a hearty, 'shut up' turned and stalked out of the room. To her credit, she did not run or throw a fit, but she was done; she'd heard enough. Nonetheless, her blankness had scared Mary more than if she'd flown off the handle, and she couldn't let her get away so easily.

"Norah – Bug!" she called and tried to reach for her arm, but all she caught was thin air. "Norah, wait…"

Anything to help her, anything to ease whatever mysterious pain she might be feeling; now she attempted to go after her. There was the sound of a door slamming before she'd made it two feet, at which point Brandi managed to get away, looking upset that she and her niece had burst in when they had.

"Mare, I'll go and see if she's okay; you stay here…"

"No, you don't even…"

"Mary," Marshall, forever the voice of reason, disentangled himself from Alice to call a halt to his wife's movements before she got too far. "Let Brandi go – an impartial party," he clarified, even as his daughter raced across the room and started yanking on Mark's coat. "She'll just check on her, and then I think we need to give her some time to herself."

Personally, Mary felt that Norah had more than enough time to herself these days, time when she could only brood about how miserably unfair her life was. But, she just scowled at Marshall and allowed her sister to scurry down the hall. She probably wasn't going to force the child into a discussion anyway; it was likely she wanted to apologize for Alice meddling and extend the offer of help if she wanted it.

"Mark – Lia taught me some new steps just today in class!" Alice was still chattering away, not the least bit affected by the turmoil around her. "You said you'd see me today – watch!"

But, before she could go into a quickstep, her mother pulled on her collar and shut her down fast, "When daddy says, 'not now' what he means is, _'not now,'"_ she knew she sounded snappy and harsh, but she didn't care. "Find something else to do. Mark and Jill and I are talking."

From down the hall came the distant sound of Brandi's voice, complete with a rapping knock on the door.

"Norah, honey…I know we came in at a bad time…" she crooned. "Your mom and Marshall and everyone are here if you need to talk…"

There was no reply, which gave Alice the opportunity to butt in again, "What else am I supposed to do?" she fed off her mother's suggestion. "Norah's in my room and I can't watch TV 'cause you're in here, and it's getting cold outside, and…"

"Alice, really; for Christ's sake…" the cursing wouldn't help down the road, but Brandi returned in seconds, obviously seeing that she wasn't going to get anywhere with a surly teenager.

"I think Marshall's right; you should just let her cool off…" she reached out and wiggled her fingers. "Come on, sweetie; I'll push you on the swing…"

It was apparent that Alice was going to fight a little longer to show off for her sister's soon-to-be-new family, but seeing the steely glare on Mary's face, she settled for pouting and reluctantly slunk after her aunt. Clearly, she was put-out that she had been promised a performance and now the individuals who were supposed to be in her audience weren't making good on their word. But, Mary was confident she would get over it, and it wasn't like there wouldn't be another time for her to exercise her new moves. Her loss was not nearly as great as Norah's.

Once the screen door slammed shut another time, Mark sighed and ran his hand over his eyes, Jill looking tentative and tense beside him.

"That went well…" he moaned sarcastically. "I should've just taken the silence for what it was, but she threw me off guard and I had to start babbling about the house. What a genius I am…"

"No, I was surprised too," Jill insisted, rubbing his arm tenderly. "But, I guess coming in and thinking we knew what was in store for us was a mistake. Maybe she'll have more to say once she's had a little bit of time…"

"Maybe its best if she stays here tonight," Mark broke in, removing his fingers from his face and looking pleadingly at Mary. "I know she's supposed to be with me Wednesday through Saturday, but given everything we just dumped on her…" He blinked soulfully at his ex, "Would you mind, Mare? I don't want to drag her home and have her think I'm trying to interrogate her…"

She rarely said no to another evening with her daughter, difficult as she could be, but she didn't want to agree to anything without talking to Marshall. Fortunately, he was still listening from his station in the kitchen, and read his wife's questioning look correctly.

"Of course she can stay; it's no problem at all."

"If it's good with him, then it's good with me," Mary informed the duo. "But, uh…while we're on the subject…" everyone was so frazzled that this probably wasn't the best time for this, but she twisted the knife further anyway. "…What _is_ the deal with the house? Married or not, you can't tell me you two haven't been having sleepovers, and your place is certainly big enough for that," she noted. "Is a move really necessary?"

Mark exhaled laboriously, "It's just something we need to consider," was all he said. "Nothing is set in stone."

Nonetheless, from the covert looks she was getting, Mary still thought they were going to try and swing a U-Haul situation if they could get Norah on board, which would be a hefty task indeed. She thought it was overkill and highly ambitious when it was obvious the girl was only hanging on by her teeth when it came to the marriage as a whole. Anything else would really push her over the edge.

"Can I get you guys something to drink?" the inspector cast around for something neutral to say, noticing how the bowl of chips had been demolished. "There's beer and juice and water…"

"If you have water, I'd love some," Jill spoke up. "And, thank-you for being here, Mary – I'm sure it's a little weird, but you're so close to Norah; I didn't want her to feel outnumbered…"

"Yeah, I mean…whatever I can do," she didn't think her role had been that noble, and merely hunched her shoulders indifferently. "I'll get you that water."

Mostly, she wanted a chance to confer with Marshall, and meandering into the kitchen would give her that opportunity, away from eavesdroppers, because surely Mark and Jill were going to be having a chit chat of their own now that Norah was out of the room.

However, Mary was in such disarray when she arrived at the fridge that she didn't notice her husband's deceitful glances, or the way he obviously had something of his own to share. It was how to share such a discovery that worried him.

"My God, what a nightmare…" the blonde moaned, sticking her head in the confines and groping for a bottle. "I'd have felt better if she'd freaked out; at least that would be normal…" Marshall knew she was referencing Norah. "The way she just kept staring and then that weird hysteria…" now she remembered her reaction to having to switch houses. "That's not my kid."

"Maybe not, but sometimes we don't even know ourselves well enough to gauge how we'll respond to unexpected news…" he offered philosophically from behind her back. "Norah will mellow out, and then we might get a better read on what she's really thinking."

"I'll tell you what I'm thinking," Mary barked in an undertone, whipping around and slamming the door of the refrigerator much harder than she needed to. "Is that they are asking for trouble trying to spring a move on her too," this was true, and yet Marshall wasn't sure there was a way out of this particular development. "I mean, what the hell is that about?"

As she wrinkled her nose, she unscrewed the cap on the bottle of water she had taken out. Just before she was about to place her lips to the rim, Marshall held out a hand to stop her.

"Isn't that for Jill?"

In her frenzy, Mary hadn't been paying attention, and so she glowered and replaced the cap where it belonged, holding the tube in an iron grip instead.

"I mean, I know this is a time for merriment and joy and other disgustingly-sugary-sweet crap that is going to put me in a diabetic coma…" she continued as if there had been no delay. "And, I love Mark, you know I do…"

"Right."

"But, his timing is terrible. Couldn't he wait another year or so before jumping in like this?"

"Well, I think he's waited awhile, Mare," Marshall pointed out calmly. "He and Jill both have; sometimes there isn't a 'right' time for things like this; Norah may never fully 'get there' and they can't hold back forever…"

His logic and reasoning was annoying to her, but it was nothing as to what came next.

"In any case, I don't think they're interested in waiting any longer – and the new house may be more of a guarantee than they're willing to say."

"Why?"

Marshall hesitated, throwing a stealthy look toward Mark and Jill in the living room, both of whom were seated on the couch once more and talking in whispers. By the way he bit on his lip and fidgeted, Mary knew instantly he was hiding something. As her patience was long gone, she leaned in and hissed straight into his face, not going to engage in guessing games for one minute.

"What?!" her voice was low, but her intensity was at an all time high. "Why are they so eager to do this now? What do you know?"

He didn't actually know anything, not technically, but when he put all the pieces together, there was no denying what sort of picture they made. An oddly proportioned woman, one who was a ravenous eater, one who was suddenly bursting to tie the knot when there had seemed to be no hurry in the past. One who needed a larger home, one more accommodating for something bigger than 'a family of three?' If Mary had been paying enough attention, she wouldn't have tossed theories around for long.

Knowing he should just say what he was thinking and get it over with, Marshall swallowed hard, prepared for Mary to fly into a rage in the quietest manner possible.

"I…I think…" one more glimpse of the living to make sure he was in the clear. And then, "I…I think Jill is probably pregnant."

His woman wasted no time making her disbelief known, " _What?!"_ it was the most urgent whisper she could muster without being overheard. "Are you serious?! Are you kidding me?!"

"Shh…" Marshall cautioned. "Nobody told me anything, but if you read the signs…" he was murmuring now, barely moving his lips. "I've seen you with child twice; it isn't hard to spot if you're looking, and it would explain why they'll need a bigger place; Mark's is a two-bedroom…"

"This is insane!" Mary's eyes were popping in her desperation to stay quiet and still show how livid she was. "Norah is going to lose her shit! Mark's too old to have a baby!"

This earned her a cynical and slightly exasperated look from her better half, his head cocked to one side. Since she'd had Norah at thirty-nine and Alice at forty-five, she didn't have any room to talk about the optimum age for having children. Even so, she brushed her hypocrisy aside to deal with the here and now.

"I am not going to sit around for _that_ conversation, I can promise you that," she asserted, to many weary-eyed glances from her husband. "A person can only deal with so much change, and I do not relish watching Norah spontaneously combust when she hears about _this_."

XXX

 **A/N: Adelled guessed it – probably others of you did too! I am not much for mysteries LOL.**


	9. Chapter 9

XXX

All in all, Wednesday had not been very successful for Mary and Marshall. And, whatever delusions all the parents seemed to have about Norah's attitude proved to be just that – delusions. Norah did not emerge from her bedroom even long after Mark and Jill had hit the road, only showing her face when it was time to eat dinner. Even then, she maintained a stony silence, concentrating on her food while Alice jabbered away about possible Halloween costumes. For once, Norah didn't seem to mind her hogging all the attention, because if Mary and Marshall were listening to the little sister, they weren't going to bombard her, which was clearly the last thing she wanted.

After their awkward meal, Norah returned to solitude with less than two words spoken between her and the rest of the family. This meant that Alice had free reign over the television, as her parents kept insisting that she keep out of the bedroom to avoid bothering her sister. Secretly, Mary was pining to get a shot at her child, to force her to confess what she was feeling, but she knew it would be worse for everyone if she did. It was essential she remain tolerant, that she bide her time until Norah was ready to come to her – if that time ever arrived.

Later that evening, the woman found herself snuggled in bed with Marshall, probably the only spot where she would find some measure of comfort after such a stressful day. She was browsing a few forms from the office, nestled against his chest, his arm curled around her back and playing idly in her hair. Glasses firmly on her nose, Mary couldn't pretend for long that she was really invested in WITSEC work, especially when her husband's voice continually kept her straying elsewhere.

"Your hair's getting long again…" he observed, probably because his fingers just couldn't stay out of it.

"Mmm…" Mary hummed absently, trying to read the fine print on one of her forms. "I need to get it cut; the ends are all split."

"I don't know…" he sounded sensual from where he resided above her. "I like it long – so much easier to thread through…" this came with a particularly long stretch of one of her curls, which caused her to moan because it felt so good. "Makes you look like Norah, too – at least, like she did when she was sporting the extra-extended 'do back in her youth."

Here, Mary ceased with trying to decipher anything in front of her and took pause, the mention of her daughter not taking her back to any 'youthful' day so very far in the past. She only recalled the hours earlier and the disbelief as well as bewilderment written all over her face. She had a hunch that this was Marshall's not-so-round-about way of bringing it up, and his next words only verified it.

"You knew I was going to have to go there sometime."

Indeed, the two of them had not had a decent amount of time to talk about everything that had gone down concerning Mark's blockbuster future, not counting their little gossip session in the kitchen. Alice had kept them so occupied in the hours since; this was their first opportunity to delve in a little deeper.

"I wish I knew what, _exactly_ , she is upset about," she voiced quietly, eyes fixed on the stretch of wall in front of her, papers long forgotten. "I'm not used to her locking everything inside like this…"

"Irksome, isn't it?"

Even without looking at him, Mary knew that Marshall was smirking, and his choice of words did not get by her either. He was comparing Norah to someone else he loved very much – someone who could also be prone to closing herself in when she had a sticky situation to deal with.

Not going to let him get away with this, the woman craned her neck to look up at him; rustling the covers they were burrowed beneath.

"Was that a not-at-all-subtle jab on yours truly?" she inquired, blinking slowly behind her glasses.

"Well, I won't pretend you are a stranger to shutting down when danger approaches," he revealed calmly. "It is a defense mechanism, and not at all uncommon. It seems Norah has the trait as well."

Mary didn't much care about how he had described her, because she knew as well as Marshall did that she was a pro at isolating herself. In any case, both of them were aware that she had made great strides in accepting help as the years had elapsed; she was much more interested in his insight on Norah, should he have any.

"Maybe she does…" she would give the man credit for his intelligence when he deserved it. "But, before today she was all about giving you smack if she didn't like what you said, and now – now, when she is slammed with something _this_ huge – she runs into a hole." Shaking her head, "I don't know. It just doesn't make sense to me."

"You ever think she was maybe trying _not_ to fly off the handle?" Marshall offered sedately, still patting her hair. "Sometimes, your feelings are borne out of your immediate reaction. It is possible she was telling herself that Mark getting married wasn't any big deal so it wouldn't _feel_ like a big deal."

"You don't think the lack of conversation at dinner says anything?"

"I think it says a lot," he went on. "It says she's still trying to sort all this out, for starters…"

"I think it says she's pissed."

"It could be saying that as well," he conceded blandly. "Call me crazy…"

"Will do."

"But," Marshall pretended not to have heard her aside. "I think that you're maybe expecting a little too much from this," this was said hesitantly; like he was afraid his hypothesis was going to make his girl angry. "I get that you want to know what's going on inside her head, but you may have to accept that there _isn't_ anything going on in there…"

Understandably, Mary looked a little bewildered by this comment, hunching her eyebrows inward. With her glasses on, Marshall thought this made her look like a sexy, stern librarian, but he didn't say so.

"I just mean…" he hastened to add. "The notion that she has some fully-formed opinion or emotion concerning her father remarrying is perhaps going too far." It wasn't until he finished up that Mary really comprehended what he was saying, "Think about it. Do you have exact, no-holds-barred feelings about every out-of-the-ordinary scenario that comes your way? I know I am a jumbled mess of thoughts when I am blindsided. It takes proper reflection and self-examination to really work out what it is you think in the end…"

"Because I'm sure Norah is going to be game for 'self-examination,' which sounds kind of dirty, by the way…"

"Mare, she is a thirteen year old girl," it seemed he reminded her of this a lot these days. "She gets out of bed, she has a new problem – her peer group invents problems day in and out. To expect her to articulate her feelings very eloquently is asking a lot."

It was hard to deny that he had a very valid point, Mary thought. He usually did. But, she was used to a little girl that came to her for everything, that clung to her mother when she felt the earth begin to quake beneath her feet. She had long ago come to terms to the fact that Norah was not a kid anymore, and with that transformation came less dependence, but she'd always assumed that, for the big things, her daughter would still be right there, ready to run into her arms.

All of her years with teenage witnesses blowing off their parents had never prepared her for the life she was living now. She'd always brushed off the mother's and father's complaints that their children were running amok, chalking it up to their age. It wasn't so easy to do now that it was happening to her, and Marshall seemed to understand that, sound though his reasoning was, it didn't make things any easier for his fellow inspector.

"I know it's hard to see her drift…" his tone was sympathetic as she became lost in thought. "And equally as hard to see her unhappy."

"Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine what she's going to turn into when she finds out there's another Alice on the way."

"Well, there's no confirmation on that," Marshall was humble now, but he was fairly certain of what he'd seen. "My postulation about Jill might not be accurate in the least."

"Please," Mary scoffed. "I got a look at her after you clued me in. If she isn't pregnant, she's definitely paunchy, and even that wouldn't require a house with more than two bedrooms."

"You never know, though…" attempting to remain optimistic wasn't going to be easy, but he would always make the effort. "All things considered, Norah behaved fairly maturely when she heard about the wedding…"

"That's not what I'd call it…"

"Well, fairly charitably, anyway," he rectified. "Is it not so implausible to think she'll do the same when it comes to the forecasted infant?"

"Humph…" Mary growled, wagging her head. "How cool do you think you would've felt if one of _your_ parents had another baby when you were in seventh grade?" she proposed the state of affairs. "Hell, the way kids are these days, seventh graders are probably having babies of their own…"

"Perish the thought."

"I'm just saying," she concluded. "It won't get her in with the popular gang at lunch, that's for sure. I wonder why I'm not more upset." Marshall wasn't sure why she'd ponder the circumstances for herself until she elaborated. "Mark having another kid and all…"

" _Possible_ other kid…"

"I mean, when Jinx found out about Scott, she got all affronted that James had-had other kids besides me and Brandi," she recalled. "Maybe I should be jealous or something."

This was not said with the air that Mary really expected to suddenly be overcome with envy; there was a definite sense that she was joking. Very little of what had happened with James' second family mirrored what was going on with Norah's additional one. Perhaps Mary was likening her experience to her daughter's just to highlight how different they really were.

"Jealousy would indicate that Mark and his new bride-to-be have something that you desire, something you cannot see yourself without, and by the same token, their possession of this _something_ has you wishing you could step into their world and take hold of it all on your own…"

"Pretty fancy wording just to talk about the green-eyed monster," Mary chuckled. "But, I'd say you have it pegged. What's Mark got that I need?"

"You both have a Norah…"

"Mmm hmm…"

"A significant other you are wild about," at this, he fluttered his eyelashes theatrically and Mary let her orbs journey skyward in disgust, but she found it in her to grin anyway. "A steady job; a nice home…"

"You're making us sound like we're one in the same…"

Marshall just kept chattering, "And a second child with your chosen spouse," he finished soundly, clearly proud to have covered all the bases. "No need for jealousy in this lifetime, I would imagine."

"I guess you're right."

He was, of course, and Mary felt no flares of resentment toward her ex-husband in the least. How could she, after everything Marshall had just described? She hadn't been even remotely attracted to Mark in eons, not since she was a teenager, and even then he had been a ploy and a tool to get herself away from Jinx.

But, a small part of the inspector almost wished she _were_ jealous, because that would seem more conventional – it would give her a concrete reason to rail on Mark when he revealed that he was going to be a father again. Because, try as she might to be happy for him, all she felt when she thought of his potential offspring was a sinking, heavy sensation in her gut. This caused her to feel selfish as well as disconcerted, the origin of the latter still unknown.

But, if there was anything she'd learned from being married to Marshall for almost seven years, it was that if she had a dilemma she couldn't figure out, he was aces at solving it.

"But, if I'm not envious…" Mary murmured softly, her head automatically nuzzling deeper underneath the man's chin. "Then why am I hoping you're wrong about the baby? Why am I hoping there isn't one?"

In typical Marshall fashion, he did not recoil or frown at this unflattering attribute his wife claimed to hold. As usual, he took her pettiness and flipped it around so that she seemed far nobler than she really was.

"Because of Norah," he supplied without vacillation. "I know that you care about Mark, but if it comes down to it, you would rather Norah achieve contentment over Mark gaining a slice of extra bliss, and in this situation, you want her to come out on top. To attain that, you think she's better off without a second sibling."

Mary supposed that by 'bliss' he meant 'baby' and this didn't make her feel any better.

"What a bang-up friend that makes me…"

"It makes you human," the chief decided. "Not to mention rational, because I've no doubt you can see Mark being fulfilled with or without another child and, anymore, it is hard to see Norah as fulfilled with _anything_ …"

In other words, Norah was the one who needed to catch a break, not her father. This might be true, and Mark might be as aware of this as Marshall apparently was, but Mary couldn't guarantee that she would be able to hold her tongue when Jill inevitably announced she was expecting. A marriage on top of a move compounded on top of a new baby would likely send Norah reeling, and she'd been reeling before the proclamations started flying left, right, and center.

The woman could smile fondly at Mark's wedding; she could don a dress and send him and Jill off into the sunset, wishing them happy-ever-after and more. She could even give her blessing on new living quarters; especially since Norah only lived with her dad half the time. But, it was proving difficult for her to get on board with a baby, something she hoped she could reconcile when it came time to fish or cut bait.

"She wasn't even thrilled when we had Alice," Mary remembered in a quiet voice, her hand running up and down Marshall's leg beneath the covers. "Okay with it, at best, and look at them now…" a dismal sigh. "Can you even picture her witnessing pregnancy again at thirteen?"

"I still say we need to cross that bridge when we come to it," his fingers crossed over the woman's lap and rested on her knee. "And, who knows? If Jill is with child, there's no guarantee Norah will fall apart. We need to let the chips fall where they may."

"Hmm…" she hummed, and even though she enjoyed having Marshall's hand caress her joints, she rolled over so that her chest was nearly on top of his, blinking up at him through the frames of her glasses. "How is it that we work together when you always believe the best of people and I constantly think the worst?"

He smiled, "What, you never heard of opposites attracting?"

"Aren't we more like an idealist settling down with the eternal cynic? Put us in government together, and we'd be a real find…"

"With Stan around, who knows?" he played along, clearly enraptured by the weight of her pressed against him. "When he retires, who's to say I won't get his role? And then I'll be going to the WITSEC-related meetings in DC with little potted plants for their windowsills and offering them refreshments while we discuss the ins and outs of Albuquerque's most refined…"

"Ugh…" Mary shook her head. "I totally wouldn't put it past you to do something like that. And that's just what we need – all those paper-pushers at the capital thinking we're a bunch of glorified sissies shuttling criminals under the radar…"

"With me in charge, that would never happen," Marshall declared pompously. "You're missing the point. My hospitality, wit, and charm as well as my belief that people change for the better would _endear_ them to WITSEC…"

"Yeah, dream on…"

"And then I'd tell them all about my nay saying wife in her oh-so-sexy spectacles…"

"If you're the one who's spreading cheer in DC like some room mother, maybe you should wear the spectacles…"

Making him laugh, she slipped her glasses off her nose and pushed them onto his. They weren't even a very feminine pair, and still they made him look like a woman. Mary giggled at the likeness she'd created and, seeing her grin, he adjusted the frames accordingly, prepared to put on a show.

"I think I look very smart, don't you?"

"You look like someone who screwed up trying to go undercover…"

"Maybe what I need is a little lipstick, huh?

"You mean like your drag queen days? No thanks; I still have nightmares…"

"Halloween is coming up, after all…"

"You gonna go as an old church lady wearing those things…?"

"I just might…"

At that moment, Marshall began to run his lips down her cheek, kissing her behind her ear and causing tingles to erupt all over her flesh. Thinking he was being pretty gung-ho for a Wednesday night, Mary couldn't help smirking as her arm coiled around his back to pull him closer, glasses be damned. They'd been kissing for several minutes, byplay interspersed in-between, Mary's nails twitching to pull his old T-shirt over his head, when a knock interrupted their fun.

With clouds in her head and only the thought of her husband penetrating the fog, Mary bellowed vaguely out the side of her mouth without stopping to think.

"Go to bed, Little Bit!"

A creak told her that Alice was not heeding the advice, but the blonde's eye caught the doorframe and she immediately untangled herself from Marshall to find that it wasn't Alice who waited, but Norah.

Tentative, soulful brown eyes were blinking in the sliver of space between wall and door, like she knew she had imposed and was now embarrassed. But, it must've taken a lot of courage for her to broach the confines of the bedroom at all, because she didn't bolt back down the hall. She stayed where she was, waiting to be invited in.

"Oh…" Marshall's voice registered surprise, but he gently guided Mary back to her side of the bed. "Norah…"

"Hey, Bug…" her mother tried to sound casual, like she didn't think she was butting in at all. "What's up?" When she remained mute and shuffled from foot-to-foot, Mary saw she was going to have to do most of the work here. "You want to come in?"

With the sanction, she sidled through, quietly shutting the door behind her. In her tried-and-true grey sweatpants, but with a big blue long sleeve shirt on top this time, one of her old baseball teams spelled across the chest, she vaulted onto the bed with surprising gusto. No words accompanied the flying leap, but the physical liveliness was telling, even if it didn't come with a smile.

"It's late…" Mary observed once her daughter was settled at her feet, legs tucked under her. "Something on your mind?"

Here, Norah looked at Marshall, her features blank, but it was plain she didn't feel she could speak in front of a whole crowd of people, even if the 'crowd' was only two individuals. It wasn't often she held out on her step-father, but if she wanted time alone with her mom, then he wasn't going to deny her for a minute.

"I left the lights on out in the living room…" he invented, thinking this might be true, and even if it wasn't, he could busy himself with getting a drink and setting out some breakfast dishes for the following morning. "Better tidy up before we hit the sack…"

Stumbling, he clambered out of bed, but it was no wonder he couldn't hold a steady gait. Between being ripped from his wife's almost animal embrace and not being able to rely on his own eyesight at the moment, it was a wonder he could stand up at all. Fortunately, Norah was going to help him out with one of his two disorders, speaking for the first time since Mark had departed.

"Why are you wearing mom's glasses?"

Stopping in his tracks, Marshall couldn't immediately determine if the teenager was holding back on a laugh, or whether she had guessed what they'd been doing and was fighting humiliation. Trying to look sporty, but likely failing miserably, the chief removed the spectacles and placed them back on the bedside table.

"Thought I'd see how they looked on me – quite a fashion statement, don't you think?" he teased. "You never know; my eyes may go bad any day and then I'll need my own pair. Mom can start calling me 'four eyes' and everything."

It was plain Norah didn't believe his explanation, but she didn't seem too bothered by the real reason he'd been fooling around, and didn't say anything else. Marshall saw this as his cue to exit, as promised, and rumpled the girl's tangled blonde tresses before disappearing into the hall, shutting the door behind him.

In the absence of Marshall, Norah didn't seem any keener on opening up, and instead crawled to his side of the bed, snatching up the book on his own table and giving it the once over. Mary left her be, and even went so far as to return to her WITSEC documents, carefully concealing names and symbols so her daughter wouldn't glimpse anything she wasn't supposed to. The expectancy she was beginning to feel was palpable, but she was rapidly realizing how Marshall had probably felt for years in trying to get her to share her innermost secrets. The timing had to be exactly right, or you would risk not hearing anything at all. One thing was for sure; Norah didn't do well when pushed these days.

And yet, the silence cloaked them for so long that Mary began to feel sure that her husband would return before they'd gotten the chance to go over anything. She scratched along, crossing out in the margins of her paper when she had to add or subtract a budget amount, flourishing the proper sheets with her signature when she needed to. Norah slunk down beside her, reading the back cover of Marshall's novel, resting her head on her mother's shoulder. A clandestine glance showed Mary that her eyes weren't moving back and forth, which meant she wasn't taking a word in. The same could likely be said for her, because she had not put her glasses back on when Marshall had left them, and there was no telling how her handwriting looked when she wrote without them.

Nonetheless, patience paid off, and after what felt like hours, Norah finally opened her mouth.

"Did your parents ever get married again?"

This wasn't a question she could ask Marshall, and this partially explained why she had sent him away. But, it also concerned Mary, because it was so close to what she and her better half had been discussing. Had Norah been listening at the door? If she had, she might've picked up on the bundled new addition that was set to arrive. Her demeanor didn't indicate she'd heard anything of the sort, and so they were likely in the clear.

"My dad did," Mary answered eventually, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on her work.

"Did you like his new wife?"

"I never met her," she confessed, knowing this wouldn't really aide Norah in looking for similarities, but it was the truth. "Talked to her once, but that was all."

"How come?"

"Well…" she had thought the child knew the details of this particular part of Mary's past already, but perhaps she'd forgotten; perhaps she just wanted to hear it again. "My dad left when I was seven, and I didn't see him again until you were almost a year old. Brandi tracked down our half-brother, Scott, a few years before that, and I met Lauren, my half-sister, about a year before _that_ , only I didn't know she was my sister at the time…"

"You told me that," Norah proved that she'd been privy to all this before. "But…"

"Well, if I wasn't seeing my dad, I wasn't seeing his wife," Mary didn't have a better justification. "I talked to Lauren a few times on the phone after my dad died, and her mom was in on one of those conversations."

"Didn't Scott die too?"

"Yes, he did."

"Because of your dad?"

"Essentially," brutal as it was, it was honest. "I really can't say I know that much – if anything – about what would've been my step-mother, if my dad had stuck around. She seemed nice enough when I spoke to her, but how much can you know from one discussion?"

"Were you mad that he'd gotten married again and didn't tell you?"

Mary considered carefully before responding, and pretended to be occupied looking for a missing paper to give herself time to think. Not once had she glanced at her daughter since they'd started talking, nor had Norah looked up from her examination of Marshall's novel. More was flooding out by behaving as though this was a very commonplace topic, but the last question that had been posed could shove them straight into a minefield.

If Mary admitted that she'd been furious with James for having a second family, then it would given Norah credence to be incensed when it came to Mark's tying the knot. Much as she squirmed at the idea of her ex having another child, it was important not to influence Norah's feelings on the subject – or any subject in the vicinity. They would have enough problems without Mary playing puppet master.

"I guess I kind of was…" as she said it, Mary realized what it was she'd really been upset about after learning of the Griffins, and it wasn't the marriage. "I had a much harder time with the fact that my dad had-had another daughter. That stung."

"How come?"

And here, Mary couldn't hang on. She wanted to be diplomatic; she wanted to give Mark every opportunity to have a daughter that accepted his newfound lifestyle with grace, but when it came to her own experience with multiple families, she spilled forth without warning. The memories of how she'd felt when she'd discovered Lauren was no FBI agent, but the product of her father's moving on without her, were suddenly very raw.

Finally, she looked at Norah, and when she saw she was being watched, the girl abandoned her gaze on the book and blinked slowly into her mother's face. Her dark eyes were so very like Mark's.

"I wanted to be my father's only little girl," it was repulsive, and not at all true to how Mary operated now, but it had certainly been accurate back then. "Brandi was just a baby when he ran out on us, and I liked to think I was special to him – that he could never love someone the way he loved me."

Her heart sank fast as she realized Norah had only come in here to get her mother's perspective on the perils of new beginnings, and Mary couldn't help wondering if she would end up feeling the same burn of being less unique, less special, when she learned she wasn't going to be Mark's only child anymore. Keeping such a secret suddenly felt obscene, and she knew she was setting herself up for Norah wanting to maim her when she realized, in the very near future, that there was a reason a larger house was going to be vital.

"But, he came to see _you_ ," the younger articulated, proving her memory was as good as ever. "Before he died – when he needed your help. He didn't go to Lauren or Scott. He came to you."

This was probably supposed to make her feel better, and Mary did manage a small smile, her fingers tracing the medallion coiled around her neck, the one Marshall had retrieved for her after years of being sealed in a plastic bag.

"Yeah, he did," the inspector admitted. "Caused me a shitload of trouble – cost Scott his life."

"But, he still came."

"Yeah…he did," Mary repeated.

Something about this must've harked Norah back to her original question, because she left James in the rearview. This was just fine with Mary, who still wasn't crazy about discussing him, and she didn't like to be reminded that she carried around a scrap of jewelry just to remind herself of him day in and out.

"Jinx never got married again then, huh?"

"No, she didn't," Norah was likely just looking for confirmation here, as she had grown up with Jinx, and knew there had been no additional men in her life. "I'll tell you though; she lost her marbles when she found out that my dad was living his life with somebody else. I wasn't around when she heard, but Brandi says she fainted."

"Wow, really?"

"That's what Brandi said."

"She wasn't over it by then?" the seventh grader wanted to know. "I mean, you've been over dad forever. It's not like _you_ passed out when he said he wanted to marry Jill."

"No…" Mary laughed, knowing she would never be so outwardly dramatic. "But, you remember how it was when Jinx was still alive. We weren't exactly two peas in a pod, Bug," she continued. "To tell you the truth, I used to kind of like that she never remarried, because I didn't want to forget my dad and if she didn't hook up with somebody else, that meant she hadn't forgotten him either." The very notion was startling at present, and she hurried to conclude how that viewpoint had changed, "But, now that Jinx is gone, it makes me sad."

"Why?"

Mary sighed tiredly, feeling worn out just drudging up so much of the past, but it was getting Norah to talk to her, and that was something that didn't come to pass very often anymore. She would have to take what she could get.

"Because my dad was a bum, Norah," it was far from poetic, but it would have to do. "I mean, Jinx had her issues, but my dad was in a class by himself. Jinx deserved better – so did I, so did Brandi. It makes me sad to think that she might never have realized that."

"You wanted her to be happy with somebody else," she stated plainly.

"Looking back, yeah. I wish she had."

"Like I should want dad to be happy with Jill, since he's not gonna be happy and married with you."

And, finally, they were back to where they should've started hours before, when Norah had first fled the scene and refused to accept what was going to be a very real union, complete with a fresh house and a newborn. She might not know all of what was in store for her, but she was a smart girl and knew that acceptance would get her a lot further than continued rejection, like it or not. Mary didn't believe for a second that, come tomorrow, Norah wouldn't be back to her usual sullen self, but in the here and now she could only answer her question and help her chart the best course she foresaw.

"You know, Bug, you and I aren't so different…" it was coming to her as she went along, some of the pieces sliding into place. "I didn't want my dad for my mom; I knew they didn't belong together, just like you know that Mark and I don't belong together. I wanted my dad for me, and I never got him," there had been a time when Mary would've never been able to admit such a thing freely. "But, that's where you have the edge. You _have_ a dad, and he does love you, Norah…"

"I know…"

"He's not getting married to spoil things for you or to make everything harder than it has to be. He's doing it because he wants to share his life with Jill, and I know it sucks to just acknowledge all this change, but…"

"But, what?" she didn't sound convinced that whatever Mary was going to finish with would tie up any loose ends.

"Finding someone you can stand enough to spend the rest of your life with is a marathon, Bug," there was her negativity shining through. "This is his chance, you know? I know, tough as it is for you, that you want him to have it."

And suddenly, much as she had done the other night, Norah spontaneously placed her arms around Mary's neck, holding on for dear life, in need of a connection that had been unbroken for thirteen long years. Everything in her life had at some point or another toppled over – the days when Mary and Marshall hadn't been able to agree whether or not to wed, the birth of Alice, the introduction of Jill, Stan's reappearance, Jinx's death, and around and around they went. Minus the nine months she had carried Alice, Mary had always done her best to be the most constant force she could in Norah's existence, and if she was going to cling now, she had to give her something to cling _to_.

Closing her eyes, unsure if she should let the hug speak for itself or not, the inspector exhaled and gave her daughter a quick squeeze, trying to say what she could without words to bog everything down.

"When I was little…" Norah's voice was a whisper over Mary's shoulder. "Dad would…let me kick the soccer ball in the house…he drew pictures with me on the driveway with chalk…he took me to the movies and to the swimming pool…" Mark had; he had gone above and beyond what his ex-wife had ever anticipated from him. "Just him and me. The two of us."

And, it was with this phrase that Mary understood Norah was feeling the loss of a sanctuary she had not had since she was a child – to be daddy's little girl, his one and only, no wives or girlfriends or anybody else to get in the way.

If Norah felt badly about losing such a title to Jill, how was she going to feel when she learned she was really losing it to an innocent, helpless little baby that would recreate her bond with Mark all over again? This time, she would watch from the sidelines as Mark, satisfied and settled down, would give fatherhood a second try.

XXX

 **A/N: I enjoyed writing the bit with Mary and Marshall and the glasses – and I always enjoy writing Mary and Norah. Hopefully you all enjoy it too!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Thank-you to all my loyal readers! If you're just reading or taking the time to review as well, I appreciate all of you!**

XXX

Just as Mary had predicted, Thursday morning didn't get off to a sunny start, either literally or figuratively. Norah was crabby and refused to eat anything her mother or Marshall offered for breakfast, finally settling for an old, stale Pop-Tart that had been shoved way back in the cabinet. After changing her shirt three times – not a typical occurrence for Norah – they were running late already, an oversight that was made more obnoxious because it was pouring rain. The gale outside was causing the brown leaves to blow from their trees, scattering the sidewalks and leaving the gutters and grass a soggy, swampy mess.

Alice was tetchy about getting into her raincoat and boots, claiming she didn't need either one, which put them even further behind schedule. Marshall off to check on a bumbling witness and Brandi starting an early shift at her department store job, Mary was enlisted to haul all four kids to school. After bidding Norah and Robyn farewell, she swung back around to the grade school to drop off Max and Alice, both of whom did not seem keen to leave the snug interior of the car for the blustery weather outdoors.

It seemed, however, that they weren't the only ones running late. A long line of cars was waiting in the drive, which meant they were stuck for a few moments until they could get closer to the front door. Sighing and drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, Mary just hoped that wherever Marshall had jetted off to, he was consoling his charge somewhere with a roof.

"Mommy, turn up the radio!" Alice bleated from the backseat, kicking her booted feet so that they whacked against the passenger seat. "I like this song!"

Without thinking about it, Mary did as she had been asked, fiddling the knob so the sound came through the speakers better. Alice hummed merrily under her breath for a few minutes, which gave the blonde a chance to speak to Max, who was staring dismally out at the rain-washed parking lot.

"Max, did your mom tell you that you have an eye doctor appointment this afternoon?" she peered at him in the rearview mirror.

"Yeah," he replied. "She said I get to leave early."

"Two o'clock," Mary confirmed. "What'll you miss? Not recess, I hope."

"I don't know," he spoke softly as usual, something his aunt knew didn't mean he was unhappy; she knew his dejected face from his quiet face, and she didn't sense pressing problems at the moment. "Math, maybe…"

"Lucky break," she decided. "You master that twos-times-table, yet?"

"Twos aren't so hard," this was what he'd been working on when she'd seen him Monday night. "My teacher started talking about threes yesterday. They're harder."

"I know three plus three!" Alice suddenly broke in, halting her tuneless singing. "It's six! And three plus four is seven and three plus five is eight…"

"Yeah, thanks for the bulletin," Mary snorted. "Why don't you give three _times_ three a shot?"

"I don't know times!" the girl threw up her hands. "Just plus and minus!"

"Then Max must be into some pretty heady stuff," she lightly placed her foot on the gas to inch the car forward another few feet. "You're not gonna get behind just from one old eye appointment either, Moppet," using his old school nickname, even though his hair wasn't nearly so shaggy anymore. "Although, you better make sure they don't stick anything too sharp in there, or you'll start going blind in your old age like me."

Brandi's son had-had enough experiences with the ophthalmologist, and so he couldn't bother being worried by what Mary said. He just grinned, his tongue poking between his teeth, and she smirked back in the tiny mirror overhead.

"If Max gets to leave school early, why can't I?" Alice suddenly wanted to know, cupping her hands around her eyes to see what was going on outside her window. "Brandi could pick me up too!"

"When your eyes are as bad as Max's, you can get out of school early," Mary informed her shortly. "I'll tell you though, it's no picnic. They put big, gooey yellow drops in your eyes that make your pupils five times their usual size…"

With this exaggeration, she turned around in her seat, confident they weren't be able to move up any further for a minute or two, and made her orbs particularly round, which scared Alice into a giggle.

"Like an alien, Little Bit," Mary continued to fabricate. "You want to be a part of that?"

"Ewwww!" but, she was still laughing, plainly thinking that her mother was joking. "Your eyes get bigger? Gross! What are your pupils, anyway?"

"The black part," Max chimed in. "Right here…" he drew a circle around his own to show his cousin.

"They're going to blow up your eyes?" Alice inquired in a hushed voice. "What'll happen to the blue part?" clearly, she felt that this was getting interesting.

"They don't stay big forever," the boy supplied intelligently. "They go back to normal after awhile, but they give you this pair of really nerdy sunglasses after they do it because it's hard to see in really bright light…"

This was the most Mary had heard out of Max in awhile, but if she had to guess, she thought he was enjoying schooling Alice in the intricacies of the eye doctor. He was the only one of the four kids who ever had to go, the only one with vision poor enough to warrant glasses – at least until Mary had joined the club a few years earlier. Almost the minute he'd gone to kindergarten, he'd been fitted with frames, unable to glimpse anything on the board in front of him. Years before, Mary hadn't liked that he had to wear glasses because it was another way to separate him from the girls. Now, it seemed he was quite an expert, and his eccentricity set him apart in a good way, at least according to Alice, who was growing more fascinated by the minute.

"What happens if you stay in the sun too long when your eyes are all black?" now she sounded awed. "Does it make you go blind?"

"No, you just squint a lot…"

"If they can make your eyes black, what other colors can they make them? I want _orange_ eyes!"

Max laughed at this, unsure what to say to his zealous cousin, who was so much like his sister, except a younger version. Mary opted to tune back in to spare him the necessity of answering.

"You'd look like some creepy insect," she observed. "And, anyway, they don't actually _turn_ your eyes black, Alice. They dilate them – expand them, sort of – so that the black part you already have looks larger. It helps them see inside your eye."

But, she was pretty sure the concept of multicolored orbs wasn't going to leave her daughter too soon, because at her mother's word, she switched gears almost at once, struck with sudden inspiration. If Mary had stopped to think about it, she would've realized it wasn't so sudden, not when the upcoming holiday was firmly on Alice's mind almost twenty-four-seven.

"Maybe that's what I should be for Halloween!" she declared triumphantly. "A big bug! I bet nobody will go as that!"

"Probably a pretty safe bet, depending on the bug," Mary acknowledged. "But, you should know…"

"I could be a grasshopper!" she was all worked up now. "Or a centipede! Or maybe an ugly-ugly fly! I could buzz around and in people's ears!"

"What are you going as, Max?" Mary asked, ignoring Alice's jabber because she was going to have to dash her hopes sooner rather than later. "You should know that Marshall is lobbying for you to be a salt or pepper shaker, so if you don't like that fate, I'd start coming up with something else."

She made a face in the rearview at him, sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth, and he smiled appreciatively in return. But, the more Mary thought about it, the more her husband's idea wasn't so terrible, at least when it came to Max. It had seemed dumb when he'd suggested it for Alice, but his nephew was their little master chef. Going as any kind of food was suit him well.

"Or a butterfly! Or maybe a bumblebee…"

Here, Mary stopped her, "Norah was a bumblebee one year," she recalled with a mental cringe because she knew what was coming. "When she was really little."

Alice's face fell at once and a significant pout came over her angelic, porcelain features. Mary would've gladly told her that she could still be some kind of insect, that it didn't matter what her sister had dressed as ten years ago, but she knew it would do no good. Copying others, even unintentionally, was not Alice's style.

"Awwwwww!" she whined, crossing her arms over her middle and scowling. "Why's Norah get to do _everything_ first? It's not fair!"

"She's older, Little Bit. Comes with the territory. If it makes you feel any better, she wasn't feeling the bumblebee costume when she wore it. She was only three."

"I can't be something Norah already was! My costume has to be different!"

"Then, I guess you better keep thinking."

Slowly and squelchily the car continued to move forward in the gutter, the front doors of the elementary coming into view. With them came the sight of several teachers in raincoats, brandishing umbrellas against the wind, helping children out of the cars and into the dry lobby about ten feet away. Nobody was letting the little ones out any sooner than they had to, because the rain continued to come down in buckets. She thought of Norah and her distaste for gym class, and hoped they weren't doing anything outside.

From the backseat came the sounds of Alice singing along with the radio again, this time to a different song. However, it was a good thing her mother was listening a little more closely this time because what she heard come out of her child's mouth wasn't anything she wanted her repeating.

"Hey, cut that out," Mary snapped after hearing the word 'hell,' in the lyrics, flicking the song off in an instant, which earned her a disappointed huff from Alice. "You know what daddy said about you and that word."

"But, I like that song!"

"Forget it. You're not singing it if I have anything to say about it."

"Mommy! I only heard it because Norah had it on one time and it's really good!"

"Norah's thirteen; you're six…"

"Six and three-quarters!"

"Whatever…"

"I still don't know why Norah gets to…!"

But, just then, Alice's attention was caught by something else, which was just as well because Max was starting to tense up as the argument escalated.

"Look, there's Jill!"

So it was. But, Mary didn't mimic the smile that appeared on Alice's face when the other woman came splashing out to meet the car. In the downpour, Jill hadn't seemed to notice what vehicle's door she was about to pull open, as all the teachers on duty had to yank the handles and deposit children onto the sidewalk, shielding them with giant black umbrellas.

Alice clambered out without a second thought, forgetting her backpack and to put her hood up. Max was more leisurely, adjusting his collar, not wanting to get any wetter than he had to.

"Alice, hang on…!" Mary tried to stop her before she got soaked, but she was gone before she could've possibly heard. Sighing, she turned to the boy, "Here, bud. Put your hood up and I'll come out to meet you; there's an umbrella up here."

He seemed relieved, as he was not on the curb-side of the car, and so Jill would be of no assistance no matter what cover she had. Not thrilled with the idea of being poured on, Mary remained true to her word, retrieving Alice's misplaced bag from the floor. Popping the umbrella outward once she opened the door, she managed to get Max to stay put while she hung it over their heads, going to join Jill on the other side.

"Watch the puddles…" she cautioned, for the bottoms of Max's pants were getting drenched already. "Don't you have boots at home?"

"Mom forgot. Dad's still out of town."

Simplistic, but definitely a realistic explanation. Brandi always became somewhat of a controlled scatterbrain when Peter was away. She was never remiss about anything truly important, but the damper Max became, the more proper footwear seemed 'important.'

Once they reached the sidewalk, Alice was already blathering away, taking no notice of the fact that Norah's future step-mother was likely cold and had no time to stand around and chat.

"You know what we should do at recess?" evidently, she was just full of ideas. "We should take turns pushing each other down the slides – I bet we'd go real fast 'cause they'd be wet! And then we could make mud pies!"

"I don't know if mud pies are in Miss Whitmore's lesson plans," Jill remarked with a chuckle. "And, I'm pretty sure you're going to be stuck with indoor recess today. The playground isn't going to have dried out even if it stops raining."

"Then you should come to our room when it's time!" Alice wasn't going to be deterred for a second. "We can play that Chinese Checker game – daddy taught me how!"

The teacher managed another laugh, although this one was more obligatory, "Too bad I have to teach during your recess time."

"Not the second one – only the lunch one!"

"Even so," she shook her head. "I'm awfully busy – wish I weren't, but…" finishing with a shrug, as though that explained the rest of her sentence.

Once she set eyes on the inspector concealing Max in her side to keep drips from dribbling onto his head, she turned her gaze that direction. Alice was able to amuse herself stomping in the puddles, the very same puddles Mary had told Max to avoid.

"Hi Mary," her smile was more nervous than usual. Looking down, "Hey Max."

Childish though it was, Mary felt vindicated when Max didn't answer, merely nodded and offered a weak, mandatory grin. She also felt him snuggle into her side, his shyness prevailing. Unlike Alice, he was not interested in having an 'in' with one of the teachers; he never asked for any unwanted attention and wished to evade it whenever possible. As praise for him keeping quiet, Mary patted his hair, not wanting him to be jumpy even though she was glad he stayed close to her.

Upon receiving no verbal response, Jill opted to leave Max aside, refocusing instead on the other blonde, who was already getting tired of standing outdoors in the gale.

"How's Norah?" she asked at once. "Mark wanted to call last night and check on her, but he thought it would better to just wait…"

"She's okay," Mary was indifferent, not wanting to elaborate on the more intimate discussion she and her daughter had shared. "Probably a good idea to keep your distance though – last night, I mean. Not forever, obviously."

The way she was tripping over her words was irritating her, because after living with Marshall for so many years, she had become somewhat eloquent herself. Getting all tongue-tied made it look like she had some reason to be intimated by Jill, and she certainly did not.

"Yeah, about that…" Jill didn't seem to notice if Mary was fumbling, however, and cut right to the fat. "I hate to do this, and the last thing I want is for Norah to think that she isn't wanted – when she said that yesterday, I just felt so terrible…"

"But?"

She hesitated, glancing down at her feet and then over her shoulder. If anyone had good reason to be unsettled here, it should be Jill, Mary thought unnecessarily fiercely. She had the upper hand when it came to the teenager. Mary's attitude could make or break Jill's relationship with Norah. This tiny bit of power lifted the inspector's spirits slightly which, once again, made her feel juvenile. She liked Jill. She really did. What she didn't like was Norah being so mixed-up and thrust into so much uncertainty.

"Do you think it would be all right if she stayed with you and Marshall another night?" the educator rattled off in a rush. "I would never ask, except…"

"If you're worried about her still needing more time with the wedding…" Mary was careful to pitch her voice down, lest Alice hear. "…And everything; I don't think it makes a difference; she can stay with you guys; I think she's past the potential-eruption stage…"

"No, it's not that, it's just…" again, Jill grew stealthy and lowered her voice, just as the other had done. "…I'm…I'm a little under the weather, and…" she was growing more jittery by the second. "…That's all…"

It was an enormous effort for Mary to keep her dubiousness off of her face, but maybe the clouds of exhaust coming from her car mingling with the rain would obscure her for the most part. In truth, she was not at all perplexed by the information Jill was feeding her, more so the fact that she thought she was hiding anything. It was clear in a more calculated look that up close she was pale, although she had the cloud cover to aide her story about being ill. She wasn't ill at all; she was pregnant, and judging by her pallor, had suffered a bout of morning sickness before arriving at school.

The top-notch Marshal inside of Mary couldn't let the lie slide without a little bit of a jab. In her mind, she was just having some fun, but you could bet that it would make Jill squirmy.

"But, you were well enough to come and teach?"

Now, her eyes skirted left to right, and she seemingly didn't even feel the great sheet of water that splashed over her pants when Alice gave an almighty bound into the nearest reservoir. It was hard to say for sure if she believed Mary had guessed, but one thing was for sure. She was going to have to come up with a better fib.

"It can be hard to get a substitute at the last minute…" she fabricated clumsily. "And anyway, I am feeling a little better, but…I mean it's really Mark who wanted me to ask…" blaming it on the man seemed a good tactic. "He worries about me, even when I'm perfectly fine…"

"Marshall coddles me too," Mary shared, backing off a little on the grilling she was doing. "If you need a night to regroup, then it's not a big deal. Talk to Mark and see if he wants to keep Norah on Sunday to make up for missing a few days."

"I'm sure he'd love that," relief flitted in her face at the offer. "And, I'm sure he'll call her tonight," back to that. "I'm sorry if we left you hanging last night, but I'm sure Norah preferred being with you and Marshall – I know how wild she is about Marshall to begin with and…"

"She's actually not wild about most people these days," Mary corrected her, interrupting her run-on. "But, Marshall does seem to have some sort of magic touch – one I definitely don't possess."

She said this to boost Jill's spirits, because she had to be beginning to feel that Norah didn't like her at all, even though they'd always gotten along well enough in the past. When you wanted to marry daddy, however, all bets were off. Mary was aware that seemingly sweet little girls could turn into absolute terrors when you messed with their father, even when their purpose was sound. Mary could speak from experience.

"I…I sometimes feel like I'm trying too hard lately…" Jill suddenly confessed, going slightly pink under her pastiness. "I never used to have to do that – Norah was so easygoing."

"Well, join the club," the other woman didn't have anything enlightening to contribute. "We've all been thrown into the deep end of the pool where she's concerned." This was as much as she wanted to say on the subject, especially with the clock ticking, and so she turned to Alice, "Speaking of, if I don't want my kid to look like she went for a dip in the ocean, we'd better get her inside."

"Right!" wagging her head, she got back to her duties at hand, not wanting to neglect her profession. "Come on, Alice; the bell's going to ring soon…"

Stooping so that her umbrella would cover the whole of Alice's sopping brunette curls; she presented her hand to lead the child under the overhang. Unfortunately, in her zest to get back in the groove, she almost allowed Mary to keep the backpack still in her hands, which had already been left behind once.

"Hang on, Little Bit; put this on your shoulders so you don't lose it…"

Reluctantly, Alice stepped back and allowed her mother to equip her with her supplies, safely secured inside the zipper. Admittedly, it made Mary's heart ache in the smallest of twinges to see her little one so taken with Jill. She knew it was because she was a novelty, because she _wasn't_ going to become her step-mother, she didn't have to see her every time she swapped houses; plus, it made her feel superior to know an adult in school, and there was no denying Alice loved to feel superior.

Nonetheless, a part of Mary couldn't resist staking her claim, and when she bent down to make sure the backpack wasn't going to slip to the ground, she laid a quick kiss on her baby's cheek.

"Have a good day, Big Al," this was a nickname that Marshall usually used, but she decided to pull it out of a hat on a whim. "Love you."

While Alice didn't reciprocate this time, too caught up in all the stimulation from the rain shower, she did manage a quick, "Bye mommy." And then, "Let's go, Max!"

Much more tentatively, he obeyed the command, slipping quickly under Jill's umbrella and tiptoeing through the slick spots on the drive.

"Two o'clock, all right, man?" Mary called to make sure he wouldn't forget about his appointment. "Your mom will be here."

"Okay…" he glanced once over his shoulder to bid her farewell. "Bye Mary."

"See you later, bud."

As the woman watched the trio depart for the front doors, revving herself up for another evening with a possibly grumpy Norah, Mary took small comfort in the fact that, even when the chips were down, she could always count on Max. In her mind's eye, she could see the reactions of each of the children when they learned of, first Mark's wedding, and then his eventual child. Robyn and Alice would have conniptions – delightful conniptions – and Norah would be disgruntled, if not something far more offensive.

Not Max. No matter how momentous the occasion, he would remain as steady and as even as it was possible to be. Of all the kids, he was the one who had inherited Marshall's quiet strength, and it was nice to know they had more than one person they could depend upon when the undertow began to pull them out with the ocean tides.

XXX

 **A/N: Nothing beats Mary's stink eye, right? ;)**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Kind of a random chapter; not a lot going on and nothing important, so hard to say if it is worth reading. It always sort of bugs me when I write certain things in for no real reason!**

XXX

Once the afternoon rolled around, the storm had switched over to a light, unusual drizzle. For minutes at a time, wispy clouds would cover the once-blue sky, but in no time at all they would part to reveal a weak sunshine penetrating through the droplets. It was what Marshall called a 'sun shower,' and he bored Mary and Stan silly at the office educating them about the properties of such an event. To his wife, the weather was just plain 'strange' and completely off-its-rocker, not unlike her life at the moment. Sometimes it seemed as though things might turn out okay, with the bright yellow rays shining even amidst the monsoon. But then, the grayness and gloom would persist once more, to the point where you thought you'd never see the light again.

It was oddly humid by the time the kids were out of school, wetness still falling from the droopy overhang of autumn trees. Even when the rain stopped, everything was so drippy and sodden that a hood and boots might still be helpful. It was Marshall who collected them all, minus Max, who was still at his eye appointment with Brandi, as he and Mary had switched places. She was off with a witness, and he was on dad-duty, filling in for Peter as far as Robyn was concerned.

"All right, shoes off on the rug – coats in the closet!" he trumpeted once they came through the door. "No footprints on our spotlessly clean floor, no ma'am!"

"Ma'am's!' Alice corrected him, making the term plural. "There's more than one of us!"

"Too right, you are, sugar," Marshall praised her grammar. "Would that be madams, then?"

"You could call us young ladies!" she invented, stomping with gusto onto the doormat while Norah and Robyn placed their jackets on hangers. "Mark calls me that sometimes."

"He calls you 'cutie,'" Robyn chimed in. "That's what he used to call Norah."

"Not anymore," the oldest girl piped up. "It makes me sound like a baby. Hey, that's probably why he passed it on to you," she slapped her little sister on the back and fed her a naughty, mischievous smirk.

Alice scowled, smart enough to know she was being made fun of, "Daddy, tell her to stop being so mean. I am _not_ a baby."

Without saying anything to Norah, "Of course you're not," he assured her airily, striding into the kitchen on his cowboy boots, which made them clunk over the hardwood. "You walk and talk; you don't put toys in your mouth; I haven't seen you drooling lately, but maybe you do that in secret…"

"Do not!" Alice squealed, pleased by all the attention from her father. "Norah does, though!' she was going to get her back for insulting her. "I've seen her – in bed! She's all…!"

The brunette entertained them with an impressively gruesome face, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, complete with groaning. Robyn laughed, although Marshall noticed she quickly clapped her hand over her mouth, so as not to upset her cousin by having a chuckle at her expense.

"You're a liar," Norah spat. "How would you know, anyway? You can't even see my bed anymore; not with the curtain up."

It appeared Alice had no answer to this, and the man thought it was probably a good idea to halt the sparring there, lest it advance any further. Right now, the barbs they were exchanging were fairly lighthearted; Norah wasn't pulling any particularly brutal punches yet, but it could grow nasty in a hurry.

"Who's in the mood for a snack?" he asked the room at large. "And, while I am rooting around for something edible that hasn't grown mold yet…" he waited until he saw Alice splutter because he was purposely being gross. "Open up those backpacks; I want to make sure I don't have any detention forms to sign…"

This, of course, didn't apply to his youngest daughter, but she and her sister swung their packs onto the island anyway, used the routine of having their folders and pockets rooted through for anything important. Robyn, however, didn't immediately heed the advice and followed her uncle over to the fridge, leaving Norah and Alice alone – always a dangerous quest.

"You couldn't sign mine, anyway…" Robyn stuck a hand on her hip where she resided on the other side of the refrigerator door. Referring to the aforementioned detention, "Only mom or dad can sign it, and dad's out of town, and mom will forget even if I tell her. She almost sent Max without his lunch this morning."

"From what Mary says, without waterproof shoes as well."

"I'd have put them on for him…" she claimed, although Marshall wasn't sure he believed her; she was a nice girl, but no sixth grader wanted to help their baby brother with his footwear. "But, I was busy working on my hair."

"And, a fine 'do you have crafted, I must say," Marshall peered over the top of the door to make sure he had a decent look, noting the bouncy blonde curls Robyn had adorned herself with. "How you managed keep it safe from the rain is a mystery to me."

"Hairspray, Marshall."

"Mmm. What was I thinking?"

For a moment, the girl was silent, although the chief could hear the sounds of his children back at the island, and he didn't think they were squabbling too heartily. Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of kid's snacks in the fridge, and so he was forced to pull out whatever he could find, knowing the girls could make the best of it.

"All right, mademoiselle…" he tried another variation of their many names on for size, facing the green-eyed Robyn when he shut the door. "Your options are fruit and…fruit."

All he'd been able to unearth were two apples, an orange, and a covered bowl of pineapple, none of which seemed appealing to his niece. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head, looking like she would intend to forgo food without better options. But, perhaps the face spoke of something besides whatever she was going to eat, because when she opened her mouth, it didn't have anything to do with the fruit.

"You know you don't call me 'princess' anymore."

Evidently, all the talk of monikers had reminded her, and with something like a jolt, Marshall realized she was right. Lucky for him, she didn't seem bothered by him dropping the title, just curious.

"I guess I don't," he admitted, not usually one to do things without first thinking them through. "Perhaps my subconscious realized that you were getting a little old for it."

"Well, I'm not pretending to be 'The Little Mermaid' anymore."

"No, you left that costume behind awhile ago," he agreed. "Does it bother you? I could always drag old 'princess' out of mothballs, if you like."

"No, I'm good…" Robyn laughed, shaking her head.

"Are you sure?" now Marshall knew he could tease her, grinning devilishly. "Because if I'm going to start referring to you that way again, maybe you could tote out your old byline; really give us a dose of nostalgia…"

"What line?" but, he could tell by the look on her face that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Hmm…how did it go?"

"Marshall, don't! It's embarrassing!"

And, indeed, if this had been Norah, the man never would've dared. She was far too unpredictable these days to risk playing even the most minor of jokes. But, Robyn was different. She was a performer at heart, and even something that made her blush furiously would also guarantee she had an audience – never something she shied away from.

"Hey, champ?!" he found himself calling over the din of the sisters rustling in their backpacks.

"What?" Norah wanted to know.

"Don't tell him, Norah – don't!" Robyn half-begged.

"What?" she repeated.

"What was it old Rob here used to say whenever a new face entered the room?" he jerked his thumb at his niece, who jumped up and tried to smack it away, but he was too tall. "Her opening number when she practiced for her Broadway debut?"

For the first time in ages, Marshall saw the shadow of a genuine smile spread across Norah's young face.

"Easy…" she scoffed. And then she cleared her throat, "My name is Robyn Mary Shannon…"

"No!" the girl in question bleated, but she was too late.

Marshall joined in to seal the finish, "And I was born on the Fourth of July!"

He and his step-daughter were in unison, spreading their arms wide to complete their little ensemble while Alice giggled and Robyn covered her face with her hands, faking that she was mortified. Marshall was willing to bet a small part of her was, but the other part was just playing the role she was expected to. She wouldn't want any of her classmates – or any of her relatives – to think she was proud of her silly younger self. Not when it was so essential to look 'mature' these days.

"You'll be sorry when I'm a famous ballerina someday and I pretend I don't know any of you!" she finally summoned up the courage to say. "I'll tell my fans that I got to the top all on my own – only Jinx helped me! You'll be begging for my autograph, but I won't give it to you!"

A shadow of her former self fully present, she then spun on the spot and tossed her hair over her shoulder, exhibiting the diva qualities she had forever possessed.

But, Alice was never one who wanted to be left out, "You'll give an autograph to _me_ though, won't you?" she wanted to make sure. "Because _I'm_ not making fun of you!"

"Yeah, sure…" Robyn shrugged carelessly, back to her usual persona. "Whatever." With that, she dove into her own backpack, which had still needed inspecting, and drew out a half-slip of pink paper, which she handed to Marshall, "If you sign it, my mom wouldn't even have to know."

She switched topics so abruptly that the man almost didn't pay attention to what he was reading. This was probably what his niece had been going for, but he realized as he scanned the sheet that her throwaway comment earlier about detention notes held some merit. There were a lot of things about Norah that could stand to be refined these days, but Robyn was still way ahead of her in having to stay after school.

"You know I can't sign this," as she'd already pointed this out, it seemed foolish to bring it up again, but he wanted to be clear. And then, turning into the scolding uncle, "Your mom is not going to be happy. You've only been in school a month, Robyn. How many detentions have you had?"

Unlike Norah, who felt the need to defend herself each and every time she was accused of something, this girl remained wholly unperturbed.

"They're not for anything bad," she insisted mildly. "I was late to science."

"Why?"

She elicited something between a grimace and a grin, "Because I was talking in the hall."

"Less talk, more work," Marshall encouraged, swatting her on the head with her own form. "Your mom sees it. Anything else that needs the once-over before she gets here?"

"Just this dumb conference sheet, but she and dad have to fill that out too…"

"Conference sheet, you say?"

"I have one too, daddy!"

And, with a flourish, Alice bounded into his line of vision so zealously that she almost toppled over. Undaunted, she presented him with a piece of paper identical to Robyn's, three-quarters of which was filled with writing, the bottom snippet looking to be cut off and returned to school. By scanning it quickly, Marshall was able to see that parent-teacher conferences were indeed going to be upon them, and sooner rather than later.

So far, he had been to a grand total of three sit-down meetings involving his children or step-children – when Alice had started kindergarten, and Noah's kindergarten and fifth grade years. Usually, he was swamped with work, and Mary never indicated that he needed to be present, so she and Mark braved the meetings with teachers alone. As Alice's father, he had attended her one and only, but it looked as though a chat with the fated Miss Whitmore was looming down the pike again.

What was more, if Robyn and Alice had obtained conference slips; it was only natural that Norah would have one too. When Marshall thought to glance her direction, he saw that she had slipped something beneath her backpack on the counter. One of the trio was not going to be thrilled about educators analyzing her.

"It doesn't mean I was bad or anything, daddy!" Alice insisted when he got lost in his thoughts. "Everybody gets one – it's just so Miss Whitmore can show off what I'm doing! I made two art projects and wrote three stories for it!"

"I see…" he mused blandly. "It says here that you won't be coming along for this one – mom and I will be flying solo," tracing the fine print that said the conference was for 'adults only.' "It's coming up on Tuesday," only four days away. "Maybe Joanna can stay with you that night…"

"No!" the girl interrupted, even though she liked Joanna just fine. "Get Mark and Jill to do it!"

"Well, Jill will probably be busy conducting her own conferences."

"I could stay with her," Robyn piped up at once, as she had been lobbying ad nauseam lately to babysit, but as Brandi was still against her staying alone for long periods of time, watching her cousin was out of the question. "I wouldn't let her burn the house down or anything."

"Yeah-yeah – can Robyn?!" the littlest latched onto this idea at once. "Please daddy? Can she?"

"I don't think so," Marshall was fairly certain.

"Well, I'm not going to," Norah interjected sharply. "Forget that."

"I don't _want_ to stay with you," Alice spit out sassily. "So there!"

"All right, settle down…" the man waved an indistinct hand and peered down at his daughter with his kindly, twinkling blue eyes. "I'm sure Miss Whitmore will have a glowing report to give," something inside the father doubted this, especially given the water fountain incident, but he didn't say so. "You and Robyn share this fruit," he indicated the items he had deposited on the counter. "There are juice boxes in the fridge too."

Pleased to have released them from the subject of school and whatever their teachers might say about them, Marshall left Robyn and Alice behind to meander up to Norah, who was grumbling and stuffing papers into her backpack. She was smart enough to know she couldn't hide anything for long, not when her cousin and sister had already let the cat out of the bag about the conferences. That didn't mean she had to be happy about it.

Easing onto an empty stool, which he then shuffled across the floor so he was right next to her, he caught snatches of what she was muttering to herself. To his surprise, they didn't have anything to do with her performance in school, about to be revealed.

"She _would_ want Mark and Jill to come over here…"

"What was that?" Marshall slipped in neatly, loudly enough that only Norah could hear and with a tricky grin to boot. "Didn't hear that last little bit."

Norah sighed, but she quit rummaging, blowing her bangs out of her face. She shot a disgusted look in Alice's direction before clarifying for her step-father.

"Why does she want dad and Jill to baby sit her? It's stupid… _and_ annoying…"

"Well, you know how Alice can be on occasion…" he offered, still more stealthily. "She likes a crowd."

"She could show off for grandma the same way she could for dad and Jill," the teenager hypothesized. But, her dismayed demeanor petered out temporarily as she blinked cautiously at the duo still hamming it up near the fridge before she continued. "Do they…?" nodding briefly at the pair. "Do they…know?" It was unclear to what she was referring until, "About dad and Jill?"

"You mean that they are poised to tie the knot?" Marshall ventured a guess, careful not to raise his voice. When Norah nodded, "No, they don't. I imagine Brandi will be letting Robyn and Max in on it sometime in the near future. Mom and I are figuring out how to tell Alice…"

"Don't know why; she's gonna be so excited that it'll give me a headache just to look at her."

It was obvious that her little sister's predicted enthusiasm over the wedding gave Norah zero pleasure. Others getting into the spirit of the nuptials would mean she would have to make more of a concentrated effort, and she couldn't be very endeared to that. Marshall just wondered how much her proverbial balloon would deflate when she found out about the pregnancy. Although, he supposed he and Mary had to be officially delivered that news before anybody else could be so bold as to reveal it to Norah.

"It sounds like you and mom had a good talk last night," he cast around for something positive to say. "You know she's pretty much got the market cornered on wayward, wild families. So, if you ever needed to talk to her again, I know she would be willing."

"I'm not so sure," Norah looked unexpectedly cagey. "I asked her about Lauren and Scott and her dad, which was stupid. She hates talking about them."

"A touchy subject, I do admit, but she'd hash it out for you, champ," Marshall assured her. "And, anyway, it isn't as if she and Lauren didn't get along. The waters were pretty choppy with Scott at times, but I like to think she and Lauren wouldn't have too much trouble forging common ground if mom wanted to make the effort."

"And she doesn't just because she's dad's 'other' daughter?" she drew air quotes around the specific word.

The man raised his eyebrows, "Is that what she told you?"

"Well, kind of," Norah backtracked. "Just that, that's why she didn't like her at first. But, what about you? Do you like Lauren?"

"I haven't had the pleasure of being introduced," he informed her. "I'd welcome the opportunity if it arose, but I certainly don't want to push mom on it. She prefers to leave the past where it is."

"Tell me about it," the girl groaned. "Last night was the first time I got her to say anything about Jinx in ages. It's like she's forgotten all about her or something."

This surprised Marshall. It was true that Mary didn't go out of her way to discuss her late mother, but he didn't know that Norah had been keeping any kind of score on how often she came up. Did it bother her that Jinx seemed to have been left behind by all except Robyn? This gave him pause and he began to wonder if the loss of Jinx was actually following Norah around more now that she was older, even if it hadn't seemed to affect her too deeply three years prior.

"Do you wish we spent more time remembering Jinx?" he proposed, careful to sound nonchalant. "Between you and Robyn and Max and Alice, you certainly knew her the longest; things kind of shook up around here when she died."

"Yeah, I know."

This was said quietly, almost as though she hoped Marshall wouldn't hear, or else that he had been dense not to realize the variation until now. He was learning all sorts of things about his step-daughter without even trying; he just couldn't decide if he felt enlightened or more confused.

"Well, you know…" having a heart-to-heart here in the kitchen probably wasn't very favorable, and so he decided they could leave the grittier aspects of whatever Norah was trying to say for later. "Mom gets a little squirrely when it comes to feelings, but like I said, if you want to delve deeper, I'm confident she wouldn't mind. Even if it's about Lauren and Scott."

The blonde opened her mouth to respond, probably to tell Marshall that he was losing it, that Mary would never be comfortable analyzing her half-siblings. But, Robyn and Alice reappeared before she could retaliate, gnawing the two apples, the younger with juice dribbling down her chin.

"Who's Lauren?" Alice inquired.

Marshall expected Norah to hedge or to banish her to the living room – at least tell her to shut up. But, to his bewilderment, she answered, and it was only when she did that he realized not every member of the family had been made aware of Mary's sordid past.

"Mom's sister."

Alice let out a guffaw," Brandi is mom's sister, dummy."

"She has _another_ sister," Norah emphasized, letting the insult roll off her back. "From when her dad got married again after he left Jinx."

"She does not," the little one didn't seem capable of grasping this concept, and so decided it was simply impossible. "How come we never see her then, huh? Mommy only has one sister."

The older seemed slightly energized that she knew something Alice didn't, and barreled on without being prompted.

"She has a brother too. He's dead – someone murdered him."

"Norah," Marshall saw it was time to interrupt, lest they scare Alice, who looked shocked by the new information. "Enough."

But, she ignored him, "He got shot – mom heard the whole thing; she told me…"

"You're lying!" Alice accused, pointing a finger and spewing bites of apple everywhere. "Mommy just has Brandi! What's her brother's name – you're fibbing; you can't even tell me his name, I bet…"

"Scott," Norah supplied smugly.

"Liar!"

"Alice, don't yell…"

"And her sister's name is Lauren and she lives in Florida – so did Scott before he was killed."

"There's no Lauren and no Scott!"

"Yes, there is," Robyn suddenly broke in, looking curiously from one face to another. Alice appeared horrified that her cousin was in on this, her eyes wide. "Don't you know that's why Max's middle name is Scott?" she reminded them all. "Mom named him after her brother; he died a couple months before I was born."

At a loss for words, Alice just stood there and gaped, plainly very put-out that something so huge had been kept from her for so long. Marshall doubted very much whether Mary had been keeping it from her on purpose, but she was young, and the details of Scott's demise, in particular, were fairly grisly. And if there was anything Alice hated, it was being second banana to Norah.

Although he still wished this had all come out into the open differently, the father didn't want his daughter to feel badly, and did what he could to turn things around.

"Alice, this is big girl stuff…" they used this phrase a lot lately in hopes that she would solider a little more maturity and responsibility. "Adult stuff – and it's complicated. Sometimes, families don't get along like ours do, and you know mom had it pretty rough growing up…"

His little speech didn't seem to be producing much to his liking, but he got cut off when the front door opened and the trio that was missing came through. It appeared Mary had gotten back to the house at the same time as Brandi, Max in tow. Glad for the distraction, but hoping Alice wouldn't harangue her mother with questions her first few seconds through the door, he called a hearty hello to distract the children elsewhere.

"Back from the ophthalmologist!" he bellowed, craning his neck. "Let's see those beautiful blues, Max! Make sure they're in working order!"

The girls didn't look the least bit interested in Max's eyes, but Marshall made quite a show out of bounding out of his seat and going to give his nephew the once-over. Brandi had an oddly large smile on her face, but Mary was distracted, dumping her keys and sunglasses on the table beside the couch.

"Sparkling as ever, aren't they?" Brandi gushed, patting Max's shoulder as Marshall pretended to look deep into his orbs, which at the moment were not concealed by his glasses. "The doctor said his vision is a little worse in his left eye, but everything else looks great. He doesn't even flinch when they put those drops in."

"An old pro," the uncle proclaimed while the boy grinned embarrassedly. "They look tip-top to me, but what do I know?" a shrug. "Did you get a new pair of specs? Let's see them!"

They were all used to Max donning a fresh pair of glasses after a visit to the eye doctor, and Marshall just assumed he had pocketed the frames while his eyes readjusted after having been poked and prodded. But, no case was pulled forth; instead, Brandi and her son exchanged excited looks, Max looking bashful in revealing whatever they might be missing.

"They didn't make you get bifocals already, did they, man?" Marshall joked. "I would think you'd still be a little young for those…"

"Come on, moppet, let's see," Mary finally joined in, sweeping her hair out of her face. "You'll look quite the professor, I'm sure."

The silence was drawing the girls into the living room, although Marshall noticed Alice still looked rather put-out. With another anxious glance at his mother, Max finally disclosed what had been fast-becoming a secret – a secret that wouldn't stay one for long.

"I'm not going to wear my glasses anymore," he shared with a nervous grin. "Mom let me get contacts."

A genuine grin popped onto Marshall's face at this development and Mary appeared flabbergasted, but it was Robyn who seemed the most amazed. After all the talk of grown-up endeavors, this one appeared to take the cake, at least for the moment. Dashing over to her brother, she peered almost obscenely closely into his face, trying to spot the little floaters somewhere within.

"No way!" she breathed. "Mom, are you nuts?" now she was going to pretend to be all-knowing. "He can't see a thing without his glasses; he'll be crashing into stuff every two seconds…"

"Hence the contacts," Brandi chuckled. "They're the same prescription as his glasses; he can see just fine…"

"Did it hurt to put them in?" Norah asked while Robyn continued to ogle. "Or was it easy?"

"It wasn't hard," Max told her. "They said if I could put them in and take them out myself then I could get them, and I had to try a couple times, but I figured it out…"

"Popped them in and out like he's been doing it his whole life," Brandi proclaimed proudly, patting his shoulder. "Isn't he handsome?" she continued to gush. "Not that he wasn't with the glasses, of course…"

"Mom…" the boy let out a minimally self-conscious groan, which was drowned by his aunt.

"Squish, shouldn't you have waited until he was a little older?" it wasn't as though Mary knew much about contacts, but she still didn't think most third graders wore them. "What if he loses them?"

"He still has his glasses, just in case," Brandi brushed this aside. And then, to her currently tactless daughter, "Robyn, back up; for heaven's sake. You're so close it looks like you're trying to x-ray his brain."

At this, Norah laughed, standing nearby with her hands in her pockets, gazing at Max in a more appropriate way, who was starting to look shy about all the attention he was garnering. This wasn't likely to end soon because Alice, who had been set on staying angry, was finally coming out of her reverie to see what all the fuss was about.

"What are contacts?" she asked the room at large. "Did they make your eyes turn black like you said they were gonna, Max?"

"Not this time," he admitted. "Contacts go in my eyes so I can see without my glasses. Like this…"

Without further ado, he placed his index finger to the pupil of his right eye, swiped gently to the left, and slipped the lens out – easy as pie, and without a single cringe. Brandi was right; he was good, and he hadn't even had to use a mirror. Both Norah and Robyn jumped visibly at him prodding his own orb, as though it weren't human, and Alice was beside herself.

"Ew!" she squealed and, fortunately for Marshall, this seemed to make her forget about Lauren and Scott for the time being. Leaping up and down and sputtering, "You're gonna go blind – you'll poke something and go blind and then you won't be able to see anything at all! Gross!"

Brandi joined in the chuckling at this, the older pair of cousins moving forward to see the tiny lens lying like a bowl on the pad of Max's finger. They oohed and ahhed as though they had never seen anything like it.

"How can you touch your own eye?!" Alice was still bleating on, wagging her head side-to-side. "Ick!"

"He's just talented that way, Little Bit," Mary said.

But, for her, this development of her nephew's made him seem oddly grown up. She hardly remembered a time when Max hadn't had glasses, and seeing his face so open and frame-free right now was going to take some getting used to. It was funny how the introduction of contacts made him appear older, and yet without his glasses his features made him look younger than ever. He was that little boy with the shaggy mop of sandy hair that Brandi had always been too busy to cut – the same hair that Mary had once snipped away at on a boring summer afternoon, six-year-old Norah at her side, Alice in her belly.

That day seemed so long ago, and yet the sheepish, wide-eyed face in front of Mary still belonged to Max. Odd, how the smallest of changes could turn out to be viewed as some of the biggest ones of all.

XXX

 **A/N: Max being without his glasses is probably the biggest thing to happen in this chapter, which isn't much! A lot of fluff in this one!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: I'm not sure who, if anyone, is regularly reading this story, but I'm used to posting every night, so that is what I will keep doing! I know that this chapter is way too long, so I wouldn't be surprised if many didn't feel like reading the whole thing.**

XXX

"I like this one!"

"Little Bit, you can see your underwear. You're not wearing that on Halloween."

"Well, I'll just pull it down – like this."

Before Mary could stop her youngest daughter, she had reached into the tutu she was modeling for her family and yanked the seat into place so that it just barely concealed her 'Finding Nemo' underpants. Without further ado, she locked her fingers together above her head and stood on tiptoe in a perfect ballerina pose. But, her cheeky smile and impeccable posture didn't convince Mary that she should be allowed out of the house in anything that showed her panties.

"No sale," the blonde shook her head. "It's too small for you. And, anyway, I don't see why you want to be a ballerina, anyway. Robyn was one three years in a row – I thought you were looking for something more unique."

"Well, I was," Alice dropped back onto her heels, hands falling limply in front of her. "But, everybody's already been _everything_ and maybe Robyn and I could go as _twin_ ballerinas!"

"I don't know if Robyn is even planning on dressing up…"

"I'm not," the girl in question wandered into the kitchen carrying yet another costume on her arm, proving her aunt's theory. "I'm in the sixth grade. Sixth graders don't go trick-or-treating."

"Why not?" Alice wanted to know, now readjusting the elastic around her behind so that she resembled someone with one hell of a wedgie.

"Halloween's for kids," her cousin informed her promptly.

"You're a kid."

" _Little_ kids," Robyn wasn't usually quite so sassy with the little one, because she relished being adored by her, but apparently the opportunity to appear grown-up wasn't to be missed. "I'm in middle school; it's not like we get to have parties and cookies and a parade and stuff."

"You don't?" Alice wilted, looking crestfallen that so many fun endeavors could be taken away the minute you graduated elementary school.

"Nope," the older was certain. "No party, no trick-or-treating."

Mary was surprised Norah hadn't had something to say about this thus far, but she was engrossed in going over her English homework with Marshall from across the island. Mary sat opposite them, finishing her dinner, and Brandi was on the couch with Max; from what Mary could hear, she was quizzing him on his math facts. It was common knowledge among the two families that when Peter was out of town, Brandi and her children hung around the Mann-Shannon abode longer than usual.

Once Robyn had finished her studies, she had designed some sort of runway show for Alice; they'd torn through her toy box looking for old clothes to dress her up in, hoping it would spark an idea for a Halloween costume. So far, they hadn't had much luck.

"Isn't that my tutu anyway?" Brandi's daughter inquired, squinting at the fabric and plucking the taffeta skirt with her fingers. "Yeah, it is…" she decided without waiting for confirmation. "I remember because I was practicing in it one morning before school, and I knocked maple syrup onto the floor – then when it spilled I slipped and fell in it…"

Alice began to laugh at the image this created, twisting and turning to see her rear end and the evidence that her cousin had once had such an embarrassing accident.

"You can still see the stains," Robyn fingered streaks of brown in the skirt.

"I didn't even know it was dirty…" Alice commented, still trying to get a look at her behind.

"Mmm…come to think of it…" now that Mary was being forced to view the outfit in all its glory, it looked a little dated to have belonged solely to her niece. "I'm not sure that _did_ belong to Robyn…"

"Sure it did," the older girl argued.

"The maple syrup stains are yours…" she conceded. "But, see the yellow here…" she pointed out spots across the middle, on Alice's belly. "That's because it's old; they're age marks…" And then, "This was Jinx's."

Both girls appeared surprised, and out of the corner of her eye, the mother thought she saw Norah tip her head up upon hearing her grandmother's name. But, as quickly as it was there, it was gone, and she was back to having a whispered conversation with Marshall. Mary, meanwhile, was caught up in seeing Alice display a garment that Jinx had twirled around in, especially given that she was the spitting image.

"No way – it was?" Robyn was in disbelief. "Mom, you didn't tell me that!" she called into the living room.

"Didn't tell you what?" Brandi abandoned Max momentarily to holler back.

"That this tutu belonged to Jinx!"

"I guess I forgot…"

"Well, if it's Jinx's, then I want it…" Robyn declared at random, but Mary knew there was no way she was going to get away with that.

"No, you gave it to me!" Alice spun away from her, just daring her to try and snatch it away, a greedy glint in her eye. "A long time ago! Besides, if it's too little for me, it's _way_ too little for you!"

"I don't want it to wear!" Robyn stuck a hand on her hip. "I just want it…just…because…"

"Because what?"

"Just _because_ ," evidently, she couldn't explain what she meant. "Jinx is the one who taught me to dance and so it's only fair that I…"

"Can you two be quiet?!" Norah suddenly burst out of nowhere, flinging an arm out so that she almost whacked Marshall's chin. "I am trying to do my homework! If you're going to talk so much, then go away!"

There was no chance that this was going to go by without a reprimand, and while Mary understood her daughter's frustrations, letting her lash out at such a small annoyance was uncalled for. If they didn't nip her attitude in the bud when they could, it would only begin to flourish, and that was the last thing they needed.

"Norah, cool it," her mother insisted. "Why don't you go in the living room with Brandi and Max if you need it quiet?"

"Because they're talking too!" she protested, Marshall discreetly reaching under her elbow for a pencil that was about to roll away. "And it's not like I can go in my _own_ room because Robyn and Alice keep running in and out like this is some stupid fashion show!"

It wasn't often that she bit off her cousin's head; they were different, true, but it was usually Alice who garnered the brunt of her anger. This time, however, it appeared they were a package deal.

"It is _not_ stupid!" Alice couldn't be expected to keep silent when she was being insulted. "It's for Halloween, and if you hadn't worn every costume already then I wouldn't have to try and pick a new one!"

"Maybe that just means I'm cleverer than you, small fry."

Alice opened her mouth to retort, but Marshall got there first, "All right, champ, let's not do this," he encouraged. "Do you want to go back to our bedroom and work in there?"

"No, because I need the table!" Norah snapped, clearly determined to be marginally difficult. "Why do I have to move? They're the ones making all the noise!"

"You don't have to move anywhere," Marshall assured her. "Girls, do try to keep the giggles under wraps," he nodded at Robyn and Alice. "And Norah, we can get back down to business, all right?"

Watching her, Mary thought it highly likely that she was spoiling to argue a little more, but she battened the hatches and flicked her eyes back onto her paper once more. It was lucky she did, because Alice threw her a haughty, disdainful look once she knew her big sister wasn't watching, complete with a shake of her behind, making the tutu sashay back and forth.

"Come on, Alice – I want to see how you look in this one," Robyn directed, just like the boss she could sometimes be, holding up the article of clothing on her arm.

"What is it?"

"A mermaid."

"Ooooooh…!"

Before they could become too overzealous again, Mary indicated to her niece that they should get a move on, lest Norah become testy a second time. Fortunately, she took the hint and grabbed her cousin by the hand, leading her back to the bedroom. Their exit also reminded the mother that they seemed to have forgotten who really owned the ballerina dress once possessed by their late grandmother, which was just as well. She didn't need them fighting over a relic like that.

Shoveling in a forkful of rice, she was happy to concentrate on her dinner once more, listening to Marshall go over the particulars of Norah's homework out of one ear. He was so patient, such a strong, guiding force; she wondered why it had never occurred to him to become a teacher. His calling had always been toward law enforcement, and yet it must be nice to have so many careers you could excel in.

"All right, so in this question here they're talking about 'Johnny Tremain' being a period piece. What year did it take place again…?"

"1943," Norah supplied, not even having the flip through the novel for the answer.

"That's right…" Marshall recalled. "And so, they want you to think about the themes that were taking place during that time. What's one that you can think of?"

"Well…what do you mean by 'themes?'" Norah inquired, eyebrows hunched in the middle as she dissected what he was asking.

"Subject matter," he clarified. "Events or even just everyday occurrences that are happening that are specific to 1943, or probably more accurately the 1940's as a whole…"

"You mean like…?" the teenager had to think a little longer this time, her mouth moving back and forth as she flipped pages idly in the book, not really taking anything in. But, in seconds she provided a thought, "…They talk about Paul Revere, don't they?"

"Yes, exactly," Marshall was enthused that she had picked up on his educating. "That was an event – the midnight ride of Paul Revere. Why did he ride to Lexington? Do you know?"

"Mmm…" she paused, eyes straying toward one of her textbooks lying a few feet away. "I don't know if they say in the book. We've been talking about it in social studies, though…"

"Well, it's more the significance of his ride relative to the story that matters, rather than the ride itself…"

"Wait, what…?"

"I'm baaaaaack!"

Norah's growing confusion was ended with a loud groan when Alice pranced back in, Robyn on her heels, evidently forgetting all about the fact that Marshall had asked her to tone it down. Mary heard her pencil clatter onto the island, which meant she had dropped it in her frustration. Rather than give her older daughter the opportunity to vent her aggravation again, the woman left her seat instead, meeting the other two girls in the living room in hopes that their voices wouldn't carry all the way to the kitchen.

"I'm a mermaid!" Alice announced unnecessarily in the presence of her mother. "Queen of the Sea!" she fluffed her short brunette curls for good measure.

"Uh-huh…" the inspector droned, looking the child up and down. "Well, that get-up is something; I'll give you that…"

The mermaid costume, also a hand-me-down of Robyn's, was almost falling off Alice's small frame. The fin, made of green sequins, trailed about two feet behind her on the floor so that she was in definite danger of tripping. The top half, which was supposed to be secured under her arms, was drooping so you could see her bare chest. Evidently, no matter what she put on, she was showing skin.

"Doesn't she look _marvelous?_ " Robyn herself got in on the act, clearly enjoying playing hostess.

"Well, that's one word for it…" Mary admitted, chewing her thumbnail. "You don't think it's a little _big_ , Alice?"

"Couldn't you pin it or sew it or something?" even as she hoisted the bust to keep it from falling.

"Since when am I seamstress?"

"Well, Brandi could do it…!"

"Do what?" the younger Shannon sister looked up from where she was huddled with Max, not having listened to their conversation. "What am I doing?"

"Nothing," Mary held up a hand, not about to involve the woman in this. "Little Bit, you really don't have anything that actually fits? Robyn has given you a ton of stuff…"

The brunette sighed theatrically and slumped her arms, at which point the entire outfit came down, leaving her standing in nothing but her underwear. Luckily, Alice was fairly immodest and turned only the slightest shade of pink, but Robyn squealed and covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the laughter. Even Brandi looked amused, but Mary shut them all up quickly, not about to have a child that was going to flash the whole room.

"Alice, pick that up," she ordered, motioning with her finger toward the floor. "You're going to embarrass poor Max to death."

And, indeed, without his glasses the red in her nephew's face was more prevalent than ever, and Brandi reached over and put her hand over his eyes to spare him the show. Doing as she was told, the little girl hitched up her drawers, but evidently she wasn't done making a scene. It seemed her parent's admonitions often went in one ear and out the other.

"If I walked around naked all the time, would I go to hell?"

There was nothing innocent about the question; she was looking for a reaction and she certainly got it. Marshall being stern was one thing, as he had not messed around upon hearing his daughter use the word the day before, but Mary made no bones about her dissatisfaction. In her world, there were very few second chances, and Alice was on her third or her fourth when it came to this word.

"I told you not to say that!" she shouted, and Max jumped this time, not used to Mary really going off the rails in the presence of others.

Alice pressed her luck, "Say what…?"

"This is not cute, and it is not funny!" Robyn wasn't laughing anymore either, and Mary's finger was inches from her daughter's nose. "When I tell you 'no,' I mean it! You say that again, and you can forget Halloween!"

"Forget Halloween…?!" Alice trilled, knowing now how deep she was in, her voice high-pitched and whiny. "But, Halloween's a _holiday_ – I _have_ to go trick-or-treating!"

"Not on my watch," Mary informed her darkly. "You don't use that word. Do you understand?"

The little one obviously still felt the sting of the possibility that her candy and costumes might be taken away, but she didn't respond at once. She scowled instead, and then looked to her father in the kitchen for help. He was looking slightly drained by Mary's outburst, but he didn't contradict her, merely nodded in his wife's direction as an indication that Alice had better do what she said. Norah, no doubt fed up with all the racket, had her head in one hand and was boring into her paper like her life depended on it.

"Alice, I'm waiting," the blonde reminded her through the silence. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, mommy," she finally whispered meekly.

"Good," Mary concluded soundly. Vindicated that she had, with luck, gotten through to her six-year-old, she decided to progress the situation still further, not wanting this fashion exhibition to last all night. "Now, either find something that will actually stay on you, or we're calling it quits."

Alice still looked like she wanted to complain, arms crossed to avoid the mermaid uniform falling down again. Robyn, however, had enough experience with her aunt's temper that she knew better than to finagle with it. Seizing the little girl's hand for a second time, she pulled her into her side, seemingly out of the fray.

"I'll help you look," she said in an undertone, as though afraid Mary might start bellowing again. "Let's go…"

Not sorry to depart, Alice did as she was being instructed, doing an odd sort of shuffle back to the bedroom to avoid sprawling over the tail of the costume. Once the pair was gone, Brandi raised her eyebrows at her sister; this was no doubt used to indicate her feelings on the subject of her unloading on her youngest daughter. But, Mary didn't have much patience for Brandi's opinion. She loved her and they were certainly much closer than they'd ever been before, but as far as their kids were concerned, they couldn't be more night and day. Brandi had a thriving middle-schooler and a studious third grader; Mary had a child that was not even seven spewing profanity, and Norah – the walking stick of dynamite.

And so, disregarding the shorter of the two, she ventured back into the kitchen to see how her teenager was faring with Marshall. It seemed they hadn't gotten very far since she'd left, and Norah was becoming more roused by the second.

"I don't get what you're saying…" she huffed, blowing her bangs out of her face. "When you're talking about Paul Revere and how it relates to the book…"

"How it relates to the characters," Marshall corrected himself. "Step one is leaning the history. Once you know the background on the midnight ride, you can think about how this act affected the people in the story, how it altered their lives one way or another…"

"Why does _that_ matter?"

"Beats me, Bug," Mary chimed in before Marshall could answer, leaning against the island. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Both of them looked up, her husband mildly humored by her dry wit, Norah just looking tired and like her mother was wasting her time. Side-stepping his step-daughter momentarily, he addressed Mary in what she had just done, best discussed while Alice was out of the room.

"That was very smooth," he murmured with just a hint of sarcasm. "You didn't pop a vessel blowing the roof off, did you?"

"Don't start with me," Mary shook her head. "It's bad enough that my kid is fascinated by the devil's ballroom…"

Marshall chuckled at the description, "If she's not careful, she'll find that hell is a lot like here; that's what I got from that rant."

"Very funny."

Smart as a whip, the man didn't linger in conversation with Mary for long. Having gotten a few shots in, he immediately returned to Norah so that she barely had time to become aggravated. His ability to know just how far to go without plunging over the cliff was always remarkable. Where he got the fortitude and endurance to go toe-to-toe with someone as unpredictable as the seventh grader, Mary would never know.

"So, does what I just said make sense?" he turned to the girl, looking right into her deep, dark eyes. "Or, would you like another example? This question is worded a little strangely, I do admit, but all you can do is your best…"

"That won't be good enough for Mr. Perkins," Norah grumbled dejectedly. "He doesn't care how hard I work; if I screw up, I screw up…"

"Be that as it may," Marshall pressed gently. "All mom and I care about is that you're doing all you can, and you are. That will always be enough for us."

"Sometimes, I ask Mr. Perkins to be clearer, but then he just thinks I wasn't listening…"

This was new information – information that intrigued Mary. Without even thinking about it, she slipped back onto her stool, knowing her plate of dinner had probably gone cold, but she wasn't worried about that right now. Norah so rarely gave concrete reasons for why she thought her many teachers were less than fond of her, and she wanted to make sure she didn't miss anything.

"If that's the case, then that certainly isn't fair," Marshall stated. "You shouldn't have to prove to him that you're paying attention when you have a question."

"You know…" Mary cut in, wondering if it was safe to offer her input. "Conferences are next week, Norah. If there's anything you wanted us to talk to your teachers about, that would be a good opportunity…"

Her daughter made a noise that sounded like, "pfft" which was maybe supposed to indicate the task of reasoning with educational personnel was a lost cause. Mary didn't want to automatically assume the teachers were at fault, especially since Norah seemed to take issue with all of hers. But, it wasn't so outrageous to think there were one or two who merely had a stick up their asses and nothing more.

"They're all going to say they don't like me," the girl assumed. "They all want me to raise my hand more, but just because I'm not 'participating' doesn't mean I'm not listening…" she drew air quotes around a specific word. "I _do_ listen. I just don't like to give the answers because I'm always wrong…"

"I doubt that," Marshall shook his head. "Your grades certainly don't indicate you're incorrect about much of anything. All A's and B's so far…"

"It's only the beginning of the year," she reminded him. "It's like, impossible, to fail right now…"

"Just gym, right?" Mary took a stab at a joke, and while the child didn't laugh, she also didn't seem to take offense. "Because who needs top grades in volleyball?"

"I will have you know that I passed serving and bumping with flying colors…" Marshall puffed his chest out pompously, and Norah rolled her eyes right on cue.

"Yeah, you're tall, doofus," Mary pointed out. "You don't think that's an advantage?"

"Perhaps, but do not downplay my athletic prowess…"

"Athletic prowess," his wife snorted, although she certainly knew how limber he was; he had to be, in order to rough up the criminals in their line of work. "Isn't volleyball a girl's sport?"

"Look, I'm a boy!"

Mary was so caught up in teasing her husband that she didn't even register Alice's statement, nor how it actually acted as a response to what she had accused Marshall of being. Nonetheless, her younger child had indeed flounced back into the room, although it was with more of a stomp this time. A quick look over her shoulder told her she had thrown on sweatpants and an enormous baseball jersey, complete with a hat that covered her eyes. It wasn't really Alice's style, but Mary also wasn't paying a lot of attention.

"Hey, batter-batter!" the brunette hollered; all she needed was the bat itself, or perhaps a glove. "Runners on first and second!"

"You sound more like an announcer than a player," Robyn informed her, scrutinizing her up and down.

"Volleyball is a _unisex_ sport," Marshall insisted, paying the girls no mind. "Engaged in by both men _and_ women."

"Too bad I haven't seen many guys whacking balls with their shirts off…" Mary shrugged. "I might have to start looking."

"Alas, no beach, so that may be tough scouting…"

"That's MINE!"

Amidst the chattering conversation, the first voice that Mary heard was Norah's, and she snapped out of her ocean fantasies with Marshall to determine what was wrong now. She was really too late to figure it out, because the teenager had leapt out of her stool and torn across the room. Just before she physically grabbed Alice by the collar, she managed to get a few words out, although they were fairly incoherent.

"You stole that from me; take it off!" a closer look showed Mary she was talking about the jersey. "I told you not to touch my stuff!"

"It was in the toy box!" Alice objected. "All wadded up – you never even wear it! It's mine now."

"It is _not_ yours, you _took_ it from me! You're a thief!"

This was getting a little dramatic, and with a sigh Mary knew she was going to have to break it up, Marshall at her elbow this time. She didn't know why Norah was making such a fuss, but she tried to analyze the article of clothing in question before she started taking sides. It was a white baseball jersey with red lettering and trim, the word 'Isotopes' spelled across the chest. It was in remarkably good condition, despite being a little wrinkled.

"I want it back – take it off or I'll take it off for you!" Norah threatened, apparently having reached her breaking point with all the uproar while she'd been trying to study. "Give it to me, Alice!"

"No, you don't need it!" Alice was going to argue just to argue, not because she had any special attachment to the shirt. "You're just greedy! You only want it so I can't have it!"

But, the older had already been pushed too far, "You are such a spoiled brat...!"

And, before Mary knew what was happening, she had grabbed the fabric in her fingers and was almost manhandling Alice in an effort to rip off the jersey, or else undo the buttons. She was so much bigger than her sister that she lifted her clear off the ground, and Alice screamed like she was being choked.

"STOP IT!"

"Norah, let go!" Marshall was uncharacteristically severe, the lines in his face going taut as he jogged over and pried her nails free. "Enough – you know better than that!"

"Make her give it back!" Norah whined, who looked like she was considering taking a kick at Alice. "It isn't hers; she stole it from me!"

"I don't want to see you touching her…"

"She hurt me, she hurt me!" Alice wailed theatrically, and since Marshall had the discipline covered, Mary figured she could hush her little one's show.

"Alice, you're fine," she insisted coolly. "Did you take that from Norah without asking?"

"No…!"

"She _did!_ " Norah was almost hysterical, which surprised her mother; anger was expected, tears were not, especially over something so seemingly trivial. "She's lying! It's mine! Raph gave it to me!"

The name threw Mary for a loop, but before she could put any sort of memory together, Alice had butted back in, clearly itching to get back at her sister.

"There is no Raph! Who's that? You're making it up!"

"Mom, tell her!" Norah begged. "Raph took me to the field when I was six and he gave me that jersey! I never said Alice could have it!"

Her reminiscence helped along by her child's yelling at her, the blonde put the pieces together and nodded, not wanting to look like she approved of Norah's overreaction, but also wanting to corroborate her story.

"He did give that to you…" she mumbled in a low voice, stealing a look at Marshall in hopes that he wouldn't think she was choosing one daughter over the other. "I'd forgotten. How did it end up in the toy box?"

"I don't know!" Norah shrieked, her eyes popping. "But, Alice is not allowed to wear it! Make her take it off!"

"Calm down…" Mary beseeched her, holding up a hand as if she could really halt her at this point. "It was just a mistake, and now we know that you don't want it in with the other costumes. You don't need to freak out…"

"Alice, I think it's time for you to get ready for bed," Marshall chimed in. "There's been enough dress-up for one night. Leave that jersey on your sister's bed and she will put it wherever she wants."

"Daddy, she _hurt_ me…" the littler decided she would try this tactic again, working to sound tearful. "She hurt my chest…" she even rubbed the spot for good measure.

"I did not, you big baby…"

"Hey!" Mary was fed-up and barked unexpectedly at her daughter, sick of the juvenile name-calling. Grabbing her by the elbow so she would look at her, she jerked her head at Alice and ordered, "Button up! Tell Alice you're sorry!"

"For what?!"

"You know what!"

"Forget it!"

And, wrenching free of her mother's iron hold, she left all the onlookers in the dust and stalked down the hall, slamming the door soundly behind her. The mess she left in her wake was awkward, what with Alice still trying to plead her case of injury, Robyn standing sedentary not knowing what she was supposed to say or do, and Max huddled against Brandi. He hated tension, raised voices, and anyone's expressed unhappiness.

Mary exhaled slowly, knowing she should not have risen to the bait and lost her temper, but Norah didn't give her a lot of options these days. She could be as calm as possible, and still her daughter never backed down; she was on the defense one hundred percent of the time. It seemed that Mark's engagement combined with the horrors of middle school was a little too much for her psyche to take. The woman shuddered to think what would become of her once she found out about the baby – if, indeed, there was a baby.

Trying not to think about when she would have to confront Mark and Jill about this particular development, Mary pushed her bangs off her forehead, the sounds of the other individuals in the room filtering into her brain.

"Max, I can finish quizzing you at home…" Brandi was already stacking up index cards, knowing when her welcome had been worn out. "Come on, Robyn; get your things. We need to head out."

"Noooo…." Alice pouted upon hearing that the Alpert gang was exiting. "I haven't picked a costume yet! I need Robyn's help."

"I can help you another time," her elder cousin promised, not going to fiddle with a brewing Norah in the bedroom. "Or, maybe we can go shopping for a costume this weekend – if mom will take us."

"Yeah-yeah!" Alice chirped, seemingly forgetting all about her blow-up with her sister. "Could we, Brandi?"

"We'll have to see, sweetie," the aunt was noncommittal, stuffing everything within reach into Max's backpack. "But, I'm sure you'll find something eventually."

Satisfied that Marshall could take care of whatever was left of the chaos, Mary caught his eye to make sure he didn't think she was fleeing the scene. Once she was certain he was looking, she inclined her head toward the bedroom, telling him it was her sworn duty to go after Norah when she was in such a mood. Understanding, he nodded and gripped Alice's shoulder without her noticing, his own way of indicating that there would be no interruptions.

And so, because it was the right thing to do and certainly not because she was in the frame of mind for more sparring, Mary trudged down the hall, quickly swallowed by the shadows. Deciding that Norah hadn't exactly earned herself the courtesy of a knock, she waltzed right inside.

Predictably, the room was empty to the naked eye, but her older daughter's bed was on the other side of the curtain separating her half of the room from Alice's. Striding across the floor, she yanked back the hangings and saw Norah lying on her mattress, arms crossed and staring stonily at the ceiling.

At first, she pretended that she hadn't even seen Mary come in; her eyes didn't even waver in her direction. The silent treatment was almost better than what she usually received, but Mary wanted to have things out as fast as possible and so wasn't going to display any long-lasting patience.

"Are you going to tell me why you popped off on Alice like that, or am I supposed to guess?"

At hearing her aggressive tone, Norah sat up at once, abandoning all pretenses. Staring at her mother out of blazing eyes, she spoke as fiercely as she had minutes earlier, all fight still bubbling at the surface.

"That jersey belongs to _me!_ Raph gave it to _me_ and I don't want her screwing around with it, thinking it's hers! I got to go meet the Isotopes, not her! I got to run the bases, I got to throw a pitch from the mound – Raph even let me go in the dug-out…!"

The string of recollections seemed to act as a light bulb over Mary's head. It might be unwise to make assumptions, but Norah's phrases were all she had to go on.

"And, so…it's like a souvenir…" she figured slowly. "It reminds you of that day. Is that it?"

" _Yes_ ," Norah pressed, like the other blonde was being dim on purpose.

"I didn't know it meant that much to you," Mary told her truthfully. "You've never worn it…"

"That's not the point!" her voice was straining now, almost begging her mother to see the light. "I had a lot of fun with Raph and I never get to see him anymore and it shouldn't matter whether I wear it or not; Alice shouldn't touch it…!"

"Okay…all right…" Mary pinched her temples between her thumb and index finger, trying to determine where to begin. "I get it. I do," at least, she wanted to. "But, just the same. This was an accident, Bug. Alice didn't know where the shirt had come from; she doesn't even know Raph…"

"I know that," she snapped. "And, I haven't seen him in forever. He's really nice. You and Marshall and I used to hang out with him sometimes before Alice was born, but the last time I saw him was at Jinx's funeral and that was three years ago…"

While Mary couldn't entirely wrap her head around this bizarre fixation on her ex-fiancée, because he and Norah had-had very limited interactions, one portion of her explanation definitely caught the inspector's ear.

" _You and Marshall and I…before Alice was born."_

It likely wasn't really Raph that Norah was hankering for, but special, sequestered moments they had shared once upon a time as a family of three. That era seemed so long ago now; it was hard for Mary to even remember when life had been like before Max and Alice. And yet, that summer before her youngest daughter had arrived had certainly been a memorable one – Robyn in her ballet slippers, Max and his shaggy haircut, afternoons at the pool, and evenings combing out the girls' scraggly tangles. Raph's generous little trip to the baseball field had occurred right in the thick of all that, Alice no more than the reason for Mary's rounded belly.

Whether Norah's yearning was specific to that summer or not, Mary couldn't know, but she was pretty sure she was burning for some time that didn't include a little sister or a popular cousin. Considering all the changes to her existence with Mark as well, Mary really couldn't blame her for wanting the focus to be on her, for a change.

Because she felt like she understood, at least in part, the woman acted on a whim, not sure how her inspiration would be taken. Hopefully, it couldn't hurt to try.

"Would you like to visit Raph again?"

Norah was visibly thrown, and Mary considered that a victory. It took a lot to disrupt her rugged persona these days.

"Why?" she seemed suspicious as she raised an eyebrow from where she sat on the edge of the bed.

"Well, you're making it sound like you miss him. I know it's been awhile, but if I called him up I'm sure he'd be willing to get together," knowing her ex as being a fairly easygoing guy, Mary felt safe saying this. But, she also made sure to include the real kicker, "You and Marshall and I could go to lunch or a game or something."

Jackpot. Mary felt more intelligent than she had in some time, as it was so difficult to master Norah's testy emotions anymore. She always felt she failed again and again when it came to her first born, but looking at her now, she knew she had achieved some small triumph. Offering to get out of the house, just the three of them, had Norah more interested than Mary had seen her in what felt like ages.

"Really?" but, she didn't want to count her chickens before they hatched. "Alice doesn't have to go?"

Mary was ready for this, "You heard Robyn. She can go shop with Brandi or something. Sound good?"

The smile that spread clear across Norah's cheeks would fool anyone into thinking she hadn't blown a gasket just five minutes earlier. Seeing her so genuinely happy, even for a moment, made Mary ache inside. It was such a rare and beautiful gesture; it reminded her of the little girl she had just reminisced about – independent and clever and content.

"Yeah…" Norah nodded, not losing her grin yet. "Sounds good."

XXX

 **A/N: I actually started this story a long time ago, and then took hiatus from it right around this chapter, so I feel like everything up to this point was written a ways back. I always try to keep things consistent if I come back to a story, like I did with this one, because I rarely (like, never,) rewrite things. Just a little tidbit – not an important one, but I thought I would throw it in anyway.**


	13. Chapter 13

XXX

Mary had high hopes for Friday morning – at least as high as her hopes ever got. For one thing, it didn't come with the onslaught of rain they had received the AM prior. In fact, the sun was shining and it was even warmer than usual considering they were nearing the end of October. It put the woman in mind of the fall she had been pregnant with Alice and had-had to go on bed rest just before Halloween. She still recalled the day she had been told she was to be confined to her mattress or sofa for four weeks. The weather had seemed to mock her – blazing sunshine, no need for jackets or even close-toed shoes. It was just begging her to step outside her little box and break the rules.

But, a memory that might've once made her feel depressingly nostalgic had her experiencing something like joyful reminiscence on this balmy Friday. She was cheerful to have found a ticket to boosting Norah's spirits, mentally crossing her fingers that Raph would be game for a get together when she made the decision to call him from the office around lunchtime.

Munching contentedly on a sub sandwich from the deli down the block, Mary clamped her cell phone between her shoulder and her ear, hoping she wasn't chewing too loudly into the speaker. Marshall was in his ever-present post in the office, head buried like an ostrich's in some file thicker than the average encyclopedia. The dazzling rays beaming through the high windows behind her caught the dust on her computer keyboard, and they also lit up Stan's bald pate from where he sat in his desk across the floor. He, too, was occupied, a pen flying left to right over what promised to be an uber-official document.

Although Mary had no qualms about contacting Raph and had already made Marshall privy to her plans, she was glad both men were busy and therefore less likely to eavesdrop. She didn't need to have an unexpected conversation with her ex while a crowd of onlookers gawked and whispered about her ability to be so receptive to her past.

The baseball player's phone rang only two times before he answered, which somewhat surprised the woman. She had thought she might have to leave a message, not knowing what hours he kept in his coaching position, but she was going to have to come up with a proper greeting sooner rather than later.

"Hello?" Raph's accent was as thick as ever, and there was a minor air of surprise there; it was possible he had recognized Mary's number and was flummoxed already.

She decided to help him out just in case, "Hey, Raph," she tried to sound casual, an unexpected bout of nerves suddenly prickling into her skin. "It…its Mary."

Why she stuttered, she didn't know. There was no reason to be uncomfortable. The man she was speaking to was probably the most easygoing she had ever met, so much so that his relaxed nature had often annoyed her in their dating days. Hopefully, she could be more grateful for it now, banking on Raph not having changed much in their years apart.

"Mary…" he voiced after a few seconds of silence. "I…I thought it might be you, but I wasn't sure…" his thought tapered off, unfinished, before he picked up a new one. "How…how are you?"

Now he was the one who sounded edgy, which wasn't a very common shade on Raph. She would do her best to put him at ease, although she wasn't exactly the most viable candidate for that job.

"Not bad…" this was not entirely true, but she didn't think being perpetually negative and telling the whole truth was likely to get her very far. "You?"

"I am well."

No surprise there.

"How's Victoria?" she referenced his wife, acting on the polite streak that was running, however faintly, through her veins.

"Great," he supplied. "She started working with public relations for the Isotopes about two years ago. She had been in sales for a long time, but this was new for her. She does a wonderful job…"

"I guess that means you're still coaching, then."

"Yes," he mused with a light laugh. "Vic is always saying that if we added a bedroom to the dugout, we could just live on the field. We spend more time there than at home."

Mary chuckled as well, this glowing report not shocking her in the least. Raph had tried his hand at different careers over the years, but he'd always gone back to baseball. It was his passion, and there were times she'd found it silly, like he was a little boy with stars in his eyes blindly following his dreams. But, she couldn't help feeling happy that he'd made such a lasting profession out of it, and now pulled his wife along for the ride.

"I wouldn't put it past you," his ex murmured in response to his comment about living quarters. "But, something tells me the Isotopes aren't your only gig."

"Well, I do coach a little t-ball in the spring…"

"T-ball?" Mary guffawed disdainfully. "Big wig baseball buff like you, I'm surprised you don't look down on something like that."

She was kidding, of course, and Raph knew it. He chortled appropriately; well aware that the reason she had brought up the extracurricular activity was to segue into talking about something far more interesting, at least in Mary's mind.

"Well, Cecelia enjoys it, so that is what's important."

"Cecelia," Mary repeated, closing her eyes briefly as she took in his daughter's title. And then, figuring she might as well be up front about things, "You see how I skillfully got you to bring her up so I wouldn't have to admit that I couldn't remember her name?"

Again, Raph only laughed, clearly not offended in the least.

"How old is she these days?"

"She turned seven over the summer," he reported proudly, making his offspring just about a year older than Alice. "Nicole will be two next month."

Mary might've done a double-take, had she been standing having this conversation face-to-face. As it was, she blinked deliberately and shook her head, as though to make sure she had heard correctly.

"Nicole?" she questioned, knowing her next statement was going to sound foolish, but wanting to make sure. "You've never mentioned Nicole…"

"I don't think I've seen you since we found out Victoria was pregnant again. The last time was…"

"When Jinx died," Mary helped him out, not wanting to dwell on such an occasion.

"And that was before," he read between the lines and didn't sink his teeth into the unhappy memories. "We just had Cee-Cee then," dropping an endearing nickname. "Nicole was a bit of a surprise, I won't lie, but a happy one…"

"Kind of like Norah."

She had not meant to turn the discussion so quickly onto herself, especially when her ex was likely going to start raving and boasting about his two beautiful daughters. But, the similarity had slipped out without warning, and the way it had come about suddenly reminded her of how she had described Norah to Raph the first time he'd met her – when she was a baby.

She had called her a 'happy accident.' Deep down, she stood by that portrayal, but she couldn't help wondering how Norah herself would feel about that label these days, sensitive as she was. Being referred to as an accident didn't exactly conjure up the most blissful of pictures, although Mary had never meant it to be insulting. Looking back now, however, she could see where it would highlight mishaps and catastrophe, rather than 'surprise,' as Raph had put it.

And, Raph was about to remind her that pondering her wording from over a decade ago was immaterial at this point. She was still in the middle of their cozy catch-up, after all.

"How is Norah?" he inquired predictably, as Mary had given him the perfect opportunity. "I have lost track of her, but she must be at least…"

"Thirteen," the blonde finished the sentence for him, her fingers beginning to twitch, a tic she satisfied by snatching a pencil and tapping it lightly on the desktop. Her half-eaten sandwich lay on its napkin; she suddenly didn't feel so hungry. "She just started seventh grade."

Raph drew in his breath, "Wow…" he said simply. "I would not have guessed so much time had gone by. Then, your little one, Max, must be…"

Mary cut him off, "Max is Brandi's," she corrected. "Max and Robyn. Alice is my youngest. She'll be seven at Thanksgiving."

"Right…right, Alice…" he blundered. "Sorry, I got confused…"

"No problem," a sanction as she continued to fiddle with her pencil, wondering when he would realize that she had not actually answered his original question and still contemplating how she would do so. "And, anyway, it's not like Max isn't practically mine. Just don't tell Brandi."

The joke hung a little flat, although the man managed yet another courteous chortle for her benefit. And, luckily for both of them, he didn't allow the quiet to wrap them up for long. He must've remembered that about Mary. Silence was death.

"So, your girls are well, then?"

In lieu of responding right away, she dropped the pencil, suddenly worried either Marshall or Stan would hear the clicking and wonder what had her so agitated. Instead, she gnawed her thumbnail, knowing she shouldn't be so anxious. Raph barely knew Norah, and he wasn't the type to blink upon hearing she was suffering through teenage angst. Why Mary felt she even had to tell him the truth about her was a mystery, but if they were going to meet up, he was likely to find out for himself that she could be surly and disagreeable, and it was best to have some warning.

Still, the inspector found herself shifting uncomfortably, mentally counting just how much time she was wasting trying to come up with a decent response. Guiltily, she recognized that she was slightly embarrassed by the person Norah could oftentimes be, even if her daughter was entitled to mood swings. And, for some reason, she surmised that this reflected on her as a parent. She didn't want Raph thinking her kids had gone to the dogs.

"Alice is…" she started with something light, forcing herself not to create a nasty hangnail while she nibbled her cuticle. "Too smart for her own good. Too sassy sometimes, too, but I guess no kid of mine wouldn't be…"

"And Norah?"

She might as well just jump and get it over with. Step off the cliff. Stare down the barrel of the gun. The worst Raph could do was hear that her first born was withdrawn and temperamental and say no to exchanging hugs and handshakes in person.

But, when Mary thought of Norah's reaction to knowing no meeting could be arranged, she cringed. Sometimes, the worst that could happen really _was_ the worst.

"Norah's…okay…" it was hard not to wince at how submissive she sounded. "She's kind of…not been herself lately. Middle school's proving to be a bit of a front line…"

True to form, Raph didn't leap in right away. He just listened, although part of Mary wished he would interrupt. It would save her from trying to make excuses for why Norah was the way she was.

"Her dad is getting remarried and, although nothing has been confirmed, there are rumblings that he might be becoming a father again too, so…"

Her explanation petered out when her face began to grow hot, either from having to concede that her life was something of a tailspin these days, or because of the persistent sunshine flooding in, she couldn't know. Perhaps to cover up her awkwardness, she rambled on, although this was never a very wise decision when it came to Mary's attempts to clarify anything.

"I mean, she's fine – she's fine," reiterating such a thing made it seem phony. "You know, she'll get through it; I have no doubt about that. But, she's been feeling kind of trapped lately, between going from house-to-house and navigating the drama at school and she and Alice are not exactly soul sisters, so if it turns out she has another sibling on the way the shit may really hit the fan, but…"

Stan looked up upon hearing this, either because of the swearword or because his fellow employee was growing loud in her run-on sentence. Mary spared him a passing glance and simply waggled her fingers in his direction, trying to indicate that he shouldn't worry, although the concerned look creasing his brow didn't inspire confidence in that department.

"There's just…it's her age," she changed tack mid-thought. "It sucks to be thirteen, everybody knows that…"

"Mary," Raph finally shut her up, and about time too. "It's okay, you know. You don't have to pretend with me."

His voice was neutral and calm, not unlike Marshall's could sometimes be, but there was something different about it just the same. He was more direct and less sympathetic than her husband, although the latter was certainly known for being straight-shooting when he needed to be.

In response to the coach's proclamation, Mary exhaled, suddenly feeling as though she'd run a mile in just a few seconds. She ought to have known Raph wouldn't judge, though. He was too sweet, too almost irrationally kind. He always had been.

"I am sorry to hear Norah is not doing well, but is there a reason you told me?" nothing like cutting to the fat. "Is there something I can do to help?"

If that wasn't just like Raph, Mary didn't know what was. Here they were, some fifteen years past their engagement days, and he was still willing to drop everything just to lend a hand. She couldn't help feeling comforted by that kind of selflessness. Maybe she and Raph hadn't exactly clicked the way they needed to, but it seemed Mary definitely had a type in spite of her outward acerbic nature. She went for men that would bend over backwards to do everything they could for her and beyond.

"It's nice of you to ask," she expressed, which probably threw Raph for a loop; he wasn't used to her conveying appreciation. "And, I know Norah doesn't know you that well – or, at all, really…"

"No, but I remember her," he said. "We had a good time when I brought her to the field. It was years ago, but…"

"Well, she remembers that too," Mary informed him, recalling herself back to the night before and how manic Norah had seemed about that sudden reminiscence, like she was desperate to cling to an easier time. "And we were talking, just kind of throwing ideas around…" this was the best way she could detail the outburst without going into gritty specifics. "…I'd like to get her out of the house, just me and her – maybe Marshall – but I don't want her to feel self-conscious, like I'm trying to get her alone just to grill her. I thought maybe a third party, someone to kind of be a buffer…"

She was getting all tongue-tied in her attempt to ask Raph to hook up without really posing the question outright. The way she was presenting the issue wasn't even entirely accurate. Mary had not hatched a plan to pull Norah from the confines of her home for some sort of 'girl's day out' where Raph just randomly showed up. She had voiced wanting to see him, although her mother had suspected from the onset it was the excursion away from Alice, even away from Robyn or Mark or Jill, that made the trip so enticing.

What was more, the younger sister didn't know Raph from a random Joe at the mall, which meant he could be a part of Norah's life – even just for one afternoon – in a world completely separate from the one Alice had invaded almost seven years earlier.

Fortunately, Raph was going to save her from babbling any further, slicing cleanly through her chatter almost effortlessly.

"I would love to see both of you again," he was a gentleman, through and through. "And, I have still never met Alice, but it sounds like maybe you think that…"

"I'd like you to see Alice at some point," Mary knew she'd been saying as such for years and it still hadn't happened. "But, this probably isn't the best time for it. You know what I mean?"

"I trust you to know best."

"Well, if you're up for it…" she was getting there now, eager to be through. "We have some time this weekend. It wouldn't have to be anything fancy…"

"I would be happy to bring her to the field again if she still likes baseball, but our season just ended; I don't think there would be that much for her to see…"

"We could just go to lunch or something…" Mary suggested on a whim. "There's this place she likes down in Nob Hill. It has an arcade and you can make your own burgers…"

"I know it," Raph assured her. "Cecelia likes it too."

"That makes three of us, because there's no other place around here that lets you pile on as many pickles as you want," she felt safe lightening the mood. "It amazes me none of the other joints in Albuquerque have caught onto that sales tactic."

Raph was as agreeable as ever, concurring with her proposal almost at once, "Why don't we meet Saturday? Cee-Cee has a basketball practice that night, but I should have plenty of time in the afternoon…"

"Whatever you can spare is fine," the blonde proclaimed at once. "I really appreciate this, Raph, especially on such short notice…"

"Well, I don't know how much I will be able to do, but…"

"I don't expect miracles," she promised, realizing as she did so that she had quit chomping on her nail, now that the hard part of asking for a favor was over. "I just want her to have a good time. It'll be good for her to get out and just…do something different for a change…"

"I hope you are right," he murmured. "Is twelve o'clock okay tomorrow?"

"Sounds great."

"See you then, Mary…"

"Yep, see you."

And, just like that, it was done, with the inspector hanging up and setting her phone aside before she'd really realized it. For a moment, she reflected how much easier the whole discussion had been than she had anticipated. Even if Raph had-had prior commitments, she suddenly felt sure that he would've made the time whenever he could if he knew it was important to her. How she had ever ended up with men that could be so accommodating toward her was baffling, but at least she had learned not to take it for granted.

Picking up her sandwich in order to continue devouring the other half, she cautioned herself to remember that one afternoon wasn't going to bring about any kind of huge alteration in Norah's attitude. In many ways, it wasn't even about Raph as a person, although his presence certainly wasn't going to hurt anything. It was about showing Norah that she was an individual, that her mother and Marshall weren't going to let her fade into the woodwork as time continued to elapse. If she wanted that tiny piece of her past in order to make herself feel whole again, to hark back to days without little sisters and step-mothers, then Mary wasn't going to say no.

After several minutes of quiet introspection, Mary became so lost in thought trying to picture the impending Saturday that she almost didn't notice Marshall looming above her. It was his shadow that alerted her to his attendance, long and lanky and falling across her desk, obscuring the typewritten letters on the papers sprawled in front of her.

Flicking her eyes upward, she saw that he had removed his suit jacket and had his shirt rolled up at the sleeves. Stan's prior residence had never been known for getting its share of the air conditioning.

"Who would've thought an autumn day could hit eighty degrees, huh?" he commented idly, loosening his navy tie as he did so.

"It won't last," Mary was cynical, as always. "By tomorrow it will have dropped to sixty again, and we'll be in for the long haul with winter just around the corner."

"I prefer to be more confident," her husband presented, tossing a file folder onto the desktop, causing Mary to root among the parchment for her glasses, which she often misplaced at the office. "I would welcome a last blast of summer over the weekend – get some fresh air that isn't quite so brisk, if you get my drift…"

"Ah, drift – breeze – wind…" Mary smirked, recognizing the play on words. "Was there a pun intended there?"

"Well, you know how hard it is to turn off my poetic soliloquies most days," he threw her a grin of his own, but she just shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"I don't think I'd call that a soliloquy."

"I could give you a definition of one if you're interested."

"I think I'll pass," Mary stopped him before he could get started, finally locating her frames and slipping them onto her nose, which produced yet another smile from Marshall, this one of a more sensual nature. "What is this, anyway?" she jerked her head at the papers he'd dumped her with.

"Possible permanent locations for the Fairfax family," he reported, now unbuttoning his collar, which caused Mary to raise her eyebrows at him practically undressing. "DC is getting a tad squirmy about putting them in Albuquerque after that family of six we decided to house last week. They want us to look at Phoenix or Denver…"

"Don't they always?" the blonde groused. "And, anyway, Fairfax? That's a town, not a name…"

"Evidently, it is both," a shrug. "Surname, city in California as well as county in Virginia, right in the Commonwealth where…"

"Jesus, doofus…" a hand in his face, begging him to dispense with the overload of knowledge. "Take a breath, why don't you? I didn't ask for your Who Wants to be a Millionaire version of the Rand McNally atlas. Seriously, you should only give up that kind of information if there's money involved."

"Fifty states for two hundred."

"Isn't that Jeopardy?"

With a jutting point of his pen, falling instantaneously into their comfortable repartee, "Then the response would be, 'What is Fairfax?'"

"You are giving me a headache…"

"Then, how about this for a question-worded answer," he was tapping his chin with his pen now, looking as shrewd and scholarly as ever. "Who was on the phone?"

Judging by the look on his face, he already knew, and Mary felt a sudden twinge of remorse. There was no earthly reason to hide Raph from Marshall. He was the furthest thing from the jealous type, and even if he had been, there was absolutely nothing to be jealous _of_. Mary had never expressed the slightest desire to be romantic with Raph since they'd broken up, minus their minor rendezvous in the immediate aftermath.

Still, though, she knew she should've discussed her plans with her partner, and while she had run the scenario past him, she hadn't mentioned she was going through with it. He cared about Norah as much as she did, but they often butted heads on Alice. Mary adored her youngest as only a mother could, but no one could deny there had always been a divide between them – negligible, but there nonetheless. She didn't ever want anyone – be it her husband or her child – to think she was playing favorites or that she loved Norah more than Alice.

And yet, when one little girl was so happy and the other so miserable, it was hard not to cater once in awhile. She just wondered when Marshall would get fed up with her bowing down to Norah at Alice's expense.

But, she decided she would crack a joke in hopes of not turning an impromptu meeting into an elaborate production.

"Raph for five hundred?" she sounded meeker than she meant to, her green eyes large and slightly guilty behind her glasses.

Marshall gave a clipped nod, but he did look amused, tucking his thumbs into his pockets and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. The gestures made him look so much like Stan that it was startling. He really was the chief these days – in more ways than one.

"I wasn't aware you planned to act on Norah's impulse so quickly," he began slowly, although there was nothing accusatory in his tone. "She tends to change her mind about as quickly as commercial breaks these days. It's awfully ambitious of you to think she'll still be on board for seeing Raph…"

"Why wouldn't she be?" Mary tried to determine if she'd overlooked something, forgetting the WITSEC documents momentarily. "I mean, even if she's not _yearning_ for it like she pretended to be last night, that doesn't mean she'd be against it…"

"I suppose you're right," Marshall conceded. "But, I trust that you are intelligent enough to realize that this is not a quick fix."

"I'm not an idiot," she scoffed.

"Yes, I already established that," a reiteration, displaying his trademark patience. "Assuming she goes for it, would you prefer I tag along, or not?"

"You can if you want," Mary was nonchalant about this, feeling confident that Norah wouldn't care one way or the other if her step-father came along for some skee-ball or air hockey. "So long as we can get Brandi to hang out with Little Bit."

It was going to have to come up sometime, but the most Marshall did was incline his eyebrows another time, halting his rhythmic swaying on the linoleum. Deep down, he had to have known that their mutual daughter was going to be cut out of the affair, but it was going to be hard to read his reaction until he let his wife in on his opinion. Sometimes, she felt like a truly rotten mother. She had one kid that dreaded getting out of bed each day and another she consistently pushed aside without a second thought.

Why was that? Why did she believe Alice was so much more capable of feeling loved and accepted on her own, versus Norah whom she had the fierce desire to protect? It didn't even make sense. Alice was so much more sensitive and clingy than her big sister, and yet Mary had always felt she needed her mother less. She had always and forever, from the second she was born, been her daddy's little girl.

And, before Marshall could make his outlook known, his fellow inspector blundered onward, what she was already thinking spewing out before she could stop herself.

"I love Alice…" it was the dumbest thing she could've said, and especially so defensively, like she was about to be caught in some kind of ambush. "I'm crazy about her. You know that." And then, suddenly fearsome, "Please tell me you know that."

She sounded frantic, suddenly craving approval, but Marshall appeared puzzled. His politely bemused look from seconds earlier suddenly turned to one of confusion and he leaned in, the better to make her understand, perhaps. He even shot Stan a fleeting look, as though he were only just remembering there was another person in the room with them.

"Of course you love Alice," even his voice was baffled, eyebrows thick and brooding now. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Mary couldn't say she wasn't relieved, and his staunch belief in her made it easier to admit to the misgivings she'd been having.

"I just feel like I've been short with her lately. I know she really pushes Norah's buttons and she does it on purpose, but that's what little sisters are for…" she claimed. "I should know," a rueful laugh as she recalled her childhood with Brandi. "But, it's not like Norah doesn't do the same thing. They can be equally nasty, just like they can be equally kick ass…"

Before she could go on, Marshall let out a much bolder laugh than hers, no doubt at her unconventional description of her daughters.

"Only you would say that like it's a good thing," there was admiration shining in his beautiful blue eyes the whole time. "But, I know what it means coming from you. And, you're right…" powering on. "Nothing changes that they are both sweet, affectionate, smart, insane girls underneath. But, they're still kids and they act like it," Mary didn't entirely need to hear this spelled out for her, but she allowed him to prattle on, knowing it was what he did best. "So you give Norah some leeway now and then. I do it with Alice. And sometimes we swap. We're as fair as we can be…"

"You think so?" the shorter was doubtful as she looked at him out of worried orbs.

"Yes, I do think so," he sounded positive. "Telling Alice she can't follow on this little catch-up with Raph is not a crime," he insisted. "Some things belong to her, some things belong to Norah, and some things belong to both of them. If you think its best that this afternoon only belong to Norah, then that's your call. I trust you."

Such a phrase was music to Mary's ears, and it wasn't the first time she'd heard it on this unusually warm Friday either. Raph, too, had articulated that he held faith in her judgments, even so many years out from having been engaged to her. And here was her current husband, ready to back away and allow her to hold all the cards and make the decisions. Where she'd earned such respect, she couldn't fathom.

"And if I screw this one up…" she surmised, curiosity getting the better of her. "If Norah hates the idea or if we go and she has a terrible time, or if Alice finds out she isn't invited and she blows a fuse…" those were all the possibilities she could come up with. "You still gonna trust me then?"

In answer, Marshall only smirked, and then he slowly reached out and nudged her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose, causing her to blink and smile softly behind the lenses.

"Always," he murmured. "We don't have trust, we don't have anything. _Nothing_ changes that."

XXX

 **A/N: Ah, Raph! I always liked him, although I don't know if I am in the minority there! He was certainly good-looking!**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Time to shatter the calm, once again! (I am indeed high drama in this story, even if no major medical event/accident has occurred – I just can't do without the theatrics, I guess).**

XXX

It wasn't often that Mary allowed herself to be lured into a false sense of security, but she wasn't fighting very hard to stay skeptical once Friday afternoon rolled around with no detonations occurring. At home, the temperate weather meant they opened the windows and screen door, permitting a warm, gentle breeze to waft through the house. The kids were placid, perhaps worn out from a long week in school, or else satisfied to occupy themselves without complaint.

Norah and Max were playing video games in front of the television, no homework to absorb them until Sunday evening. But, they had left the sound down, and both were concentrating hard enough that there was little conversation between them. Mary was on the couch, filling out WITSEC forms that she had blown off at the Sunshine Building earlier in the day, Marshall in the backyard tending to what was left of their weedy summer garden. He had claimed he needed to get out while the sunshine and warmth lasted, as there was no telling if they would have another nice day until March. Meteorologists were predicting a cold front in the next twenty four hours.

Robyn and Alice were not exactly silent, but neither was bouncing off the walls per usual. They sat at the island in the kitchen, Alice coloring a picture of what appeared to be a group of ballerinas, Robyn flipping through some teen magazine that Mary had only reluctantly allowed to pass through her front door. Any rag that offered dating advice and makeup tips to twelve-year-olds was far from welcome over her threshold, but the aunt desired keeping the peace more than arguing.

All in all, it was one of the more pleasant afternoons that had settled over the Mann-Shannon household in sometime. The only person missing was Brandi, but she had jetted off to the airport to pick up Peter from his latest out-of-town adventure. And, true, Norah and Alice had yet to be informed of Saturday's plans that now included an ex-fiancée, but Mary figured they could wait on that. Why disturb the calm?

That question was about to be answered by someone else who was not ensconced in their humid autumn hub. Shattering their hard-earned tranquility, there was a rapping knock at the front door, causing Norah to immediately put her and Max's game on pause to perk her ears toward the sound. Mary, too, glanced up at the noise, but neither of them was as quick as Alice.

"I'll get it!" she shrieked, bounding off her barstool and racing toward the hatch.

This suited everyone else in attendance just fine, not wanting to leave their comfortable posts, although Mary couldn't help noticing as her daughter whizzed by that she was sporting quite the outfit. The oddly warm day had caused the six-year-old to fuss endlessly that it was 'hot,' a word she had most likely picked up from classmates during recess; they had no doubt been sanctioned to take off their jackets, a privilege that was often banned from late fall until spring.

Rather than have Alice digging through her summer attire for the pair of shorts she'd desperately wanted to put on after school, Marshall had offered to let her take her T-shirt off, so she wore only an undershirt – a lavender purple tank-top so old that the threads in the hems were dangling in various places. She had also pushed up her red polka dot leggings so they were bunched up at her knees, brunette curls flying behind her as she screeched to a halt and wrenched open the door.

It didn't take long to figure out who it was, either.

"Hi, Mark!" Alice bellowed for half the neighborhood to hear. "Come in!" she jumped aside without checking with anyone to see if they minded.

Upon discerning the name, Mary knew it would only be civil to get up and exchange greetings, although she couldn't help feeling slightly irritated that Mark would drop by without calling. It wasn't like him, and with the way things had been between he and Norah, she felt he was really playing with fire. As it was, she noticed her older daughter instantly turn back to her game, not even sparing her father a hello.

Capping her pen, the woman listened to Alice and her ex give each other the once over, folding her glasses and leaving them on top of her papers. She was careful to conceal the WITSEC logo and stuff them inside a file lest one of the kids decide to poke their noses inside.

"Hey, Alice…" Mark sounded strangely breathless, and when Mary got a good look at him, she noticed his face was shiny with sweat, the polo he must've worn to work un-tucked from his belt. "How are you, cutie?"

Mary couldn't stop herself from peeking at Norah one more time, trying to discern if she was bothered by her father coining her little sister with her old nickname. But, her back was turned and there was no way to read her expression; she was fixated on the little cartoon men on the screen in front of her and Max.

"I'm _great_!" Alice gushed. "And, I still haven't gotten to show you the jive Lia is teaching me!" this was several days in the making. "Do you want to see it now? We could do it outside since it's so hot!"

Mark had clearly forgotten the oversight where this was concerned, but it was also obvious a dance recital was not the reason he had popped in unannounced.

"I actually have something I need to talk to your mom about, but…"

"Maybe after?" Alice pressed, speaking right over him.

Mark lamented, "Yeah…" he fed her a weak smile, shrugging his shoulders. "Yeah, maybe."

At this point, Mary couldn't help wondering just how interested Mark was in the quickstep of a first grader, especially given how many promises he'd made to watch the show. But, the issue wasn't pressing at the moment, and she was just grateful Alice was scurrying back into the kitchen, seizing her pink crayon and adding the finishing touches on her drawing.

The mother approached Mark somewhat stealthily, picking up in the late afternoon sunlight that he looked more than sweaty. There was an apprehensive, jittery demeanor about him, shifting from foot-to-foot as though he were standing on hot coals. This had alarm bells going off in Mary's head at once, and she was almost afraid to ask what he wanted, but if he continued dithering around like this, Norah or one of the other kids was bound to pick up on something.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, not intending to sound rude, but she knew that was how it came out. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I need to speak with you," he relayed in a hushed, frenzied whisper.

She quirked an eyebrow, shooting him a quizzical glance, "Yeah, I got that," showing she'd been listening to his conversation with Alice. "Is something wrong?"

"No, but it's important I talk to you." And then, in case she didn't get it, "Now."

Mary was unable to help the aggravated little huff that escaped her lips, stamping her foot just slightly and cocking her head at him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that this shouldn't become a habit.

" _Now_ …now?" she cast her eyes around the room, hoping he would pick up on the fact that having any kind of meaningful discussion with four children in their midst wasn't really in the cards. "It really can't wait?"

"It can, but I'd rather it didn't," he backed off only marginally, but there was nothing less urgent in his tone. "Surely there's someplace we can go…"

"Well, I guess, but…" this skittish persona was really catching Mary off guard, and she didn't like it. "You're really not convincing me that there's nothing wrong. What is this even about?"

It was stupid of her to think he would spill anything when he was clearly holding out until they could be alone. But, he must've thought the only way to get them sequestered was to give her a hint, some morsel of a clue. Pitching his voice significantly lower, he leaned so close to her she could almost smell the onions he'd undoubtedly had for lunch.

"It's about me and Jill."

Now she did feel dumb. Incredibly dumb. How in the world had she not guessed that when he came all-but crashing through her front door that he was prepared and equipped to reveal his second piece of news at last? Apparently, it had been eating away at him for too long, because there was no other explanation for why he would pick a random date and time to show his face and divulge that impending fatherhood was on its way.

And yet, what on earth was he playing at? What was he thinking, disrupting their serene afternoon with a bomb the size of the one that had demolished Hiroshima? He probably hadn't been trying to ruin anything, but she had to fight hard not to be mad at him for picking such a terrible time.

But, there was clearly no way out of it at this point. He wasn't going to take no for an answer. And so, with a breathy exhale that she made sure he couldn't miss, she gripped his forearm and guided him in the direction of the bedroom.

"Come on…" she growled sulkily. And then, to the room at large, "We'll be right back. Marshall's in the yard if you need anything."

Not one of the four responded, which Mary supposed was a good thing, even as Mark tried to shimmy ahead of her in the hall, as though it was some sort of race to get to a room with a closed door. She just prayed that Norah was figuring Mark's appearance meant he had a few more things to say about the approaching wedding. She was still the only one who knew about it, although she had to be aware that it was going to get a lot more real once Robyn, Max, and Alice found out.

The way the man had all-but bolted down the hall only increased Mary's frustration with him, as it was like he was begging to give himself away. Once they were inside her bedroom with the door shut, she made certain that he was not going to get the first word in. Her need for control could sometimes still run rampant, and she didn't enjoy him blowing into her house, and with bad news, no less.

"Do you mind not acting like you've just knocked off a liquor store?" she sniped, standing with her hands on her hips with her back to the door while he paced in front of her bed. "What is your problem?"

"I'm sorry," Mark said at once, although he didn't meet her eyes, continuing to wear a hole in the floor instead. "There's just something that I really need to discuss with you, and I'm afraid if I don't do it now that I'm going to chicken out again…"

Mary decided she wouldn't play her hand too soon, and used her supposed-ignorance of the baby to berate him a little more.

"I can still promise you that the next time you show up here like some scatterbrained teenager, demanding my time without a simple phone call first; you are just asking to have my glock pointed straight at your head…"

"Charming," he wheezed, casting her a dirty look this time, due in part to her dark sense of humor. "Do you have to be so graphic? Jesus, Mary. Like I don't have enough issues without worrying about you stalking me with a gun…"

She refused to be offended and shook her head, still glaring at him from her spot by the door. He had stopped wandering around, at least, and was looking at her dead-on. He couldn't think by her expression that his news was going to improve her mood at all.

"What issues?" she choked up a disbelieving sound. "You're engaged, you run a successful business, you're going to…"

She shut herself up just in time, and fortunately, Mark seemed too distracted to pick up on what she'd been about to say. He was running his hand over his brown hair, the summer buzz cut he'd given it months earlier starting to grow shaggy. In a way, she felt sorry for him. What she'd said was true – his life was full of joys, but the constant worry about how Norah was going to take things put a damper on anything he had to be happy about.

"Anyway, what's going on?" the inspector pushed to cover up her flub. "What is so critical that you couldn't wait five minutes or even another day?"

It was important to brace herself for hearing him say it. The question was, how would he do it? Would he just blurt it out: "Jill's having a baby?" Or, would he be more delicate, exercising a lot of hem-and-haw until she felt like smacking him just to get him to spill the beans? And, even now, she still couldn't determine how to react. Should she feign surprise or just give up the ghost and tell him she'd already deduced his big secret?

But, in answer to her inquiry, Mark only sighed to begin with, and exhaustion had him dropping down on the edge of the mattress. He did look rather beaten, but Mary was beginning to wish he would not make such a big deal out of everything. After all, he clearly had no 'breaking' news to share. His conscience had simply gotten the better of him and he had decided not to walk around hoarding anything anymore.

"Mark, what?" Mary prodded impatiently. Taking a few steps toward him, she tried to work in a smidgen of sympathy, "Just tell me and get it over with. We can figure out Norah eventually, since I know that's who you're really worried about…"

"Well, I can't say I'm all that comfortable letting you in on this either…" he griped, his brown eyes soulful as he glanced up at her. "One wrong move and it's a bullet in my ass…"

"Come on, you know I was joking…" she insisted. "You should've learned long before now not to take me literally."

"Yeah-yeah…" he grumbled.

"So?"

With yet another dramatic sigh, he hung his head as though he was a naughty puppy about to be whipped. Mary gave him a few seconds of staring into the floor, gathering his thoughts, willing herself to be tolerant the entire time. All the while, she tapped her foot, one hand still perched on her hip. She went through all the phrases she thought he might use, organizing herself to have a diplomatic response in return.

" _Jill's having a baby."_

" _Jill is pregnant."_

" _Jill and I are expecting."_

"Jill and I bought a house."

Mary almost fell over. As it was, she had to throw out a hand to the bed to steady herself. Mark's head had snapped up, his mouth opened and spoken the words so fast, she'd barely had time to take them in. Now he was the one giving her funny looks, no doubt at the way she'd nearly gone weak-kneed at his unexpected bulletin. It wasn't in Mary's nature to act shocked. Angry, yes, which she often used to cover disappointment or true astonishment. It made her uncomfortable that she'd fallen hook, line, and sinker like this.

"I…I don't understand…" she stammered stupidly, hating herself more by the second. "Just a few nights ago you were saying it was only a possibility, and now…"

"I don't remember saying that," he furrowed his brow. "I remember saying, at the very least, that I'd move to Jill's place…"

"Still!" Mary's voice rose unintentionally; she was put out that her upper hand had been taken away. "You made a decision like this without talking to Norah?! She's going to be the one who shoots you, not me!"

"Would you hush?" he demanded, rising from the bed and standing a lot closer to her face than she would've liked. "Norah is not an idiot; she had to know this was coming, and once she finds out that…"

"You think having some sinking feeling that your father is about to pack up your life and learning that it's true is really going to make her feel better?"

"Do you have to be so dramatic?" he spat, clamping down on his tone and looking increasingly nervous the louder Mary got. "Why does this have to be such a big thing? She lives here half the time; the move won't screw things up for her that much…"

"What a comfort," Mary snarled, noticing that he had specifically targeted 'the move' not being the eventuality to turn their teenager's life upside-down. "Because daddy tying the knot and getting his and hers towels for the bathroom isn't bad enough…"

"Damn it, Mary!" now he was the one having a hard time keeping himself in check; he even slapped his thigh in his dissatisfaction. "When you and Marshall got together I was nothing but supportive…"

"You think _this_ is the same thing?!"

"I don't see what's so different about it!"

"For starters, Marshall and I didn't spring six things on her at once. Second of all, she never knew life without Marshall. And, don't get me started on…"

"You are going to _make_ her hate me!" he whined, sounding far more juvenile than his ex was sure he meant to. "Is that what you want? Really?"

"This is because of the baby!"

Mark's eyes bugged so far out of his head they resembled a pair of saucers. Mary might've laughed if she hadn't been so irate with him, but she felt a vicious triumph in making him perspire a little further, in showing him he did a piss-poor job hiding anything, and she was going to make him pay for it.

In truth, she had not meant to blurt it out the way she had, but the way he had tried to downplay the move in favor of what she knew was the really big blow ahead had gotten to her. Between marriage, a new house, and a child on the way, he was expecting far too much of everyone. Part of the woman admired that he had tried to be so noble by hanging on for Norah's benefit all these years, but the plan had backfired. He was up against what looked like unbeatable odds, having unintentionally created a situation for himself where all of life's major milestones happened at once. And, having them happen at thirteen years old was the sticky icing on the cake.

Arms folded in a defensive position, Mary refused to back down, willing Mark not to stay mum for another minute. He looked nothing short of horrified that she'd spoiled his reveal and his mouth even fell open part way. When he finally spoke, it was in a hyper, incredulous hush.

"Who told you about the baby?!" his timbre was so low and hissy that he sounded like a snake.

"I _guessed_ , nimrod," Mary sneered, choosing not to give Marshall credit where it was due. "I have eyes, you know."

"Does Norah know?" now he sounded like he might cry.

"No," she informed him with a measured roll of her eyes. "You think you'd still be standing here if she did?"

"Mare, you have to help me…" what had started out as fury turned to pleading in no time flat; he knew he was sunk and he would grovel on his hands and knees if it meant his daughter had a favorable reaction to the sibling on its way. "Please. I didn't mean for things to happen like this; it just spiraled out of control…"

"You can say that again…"

"I'm _thrilled_ to be a dad again…" he emphasized. "And Jill will be a first time mom; she's over the moon. I don't want Norah messing it up for her; it isn't Jill's fault…"

"Does that mean it's yours?"

"Mary…" startling her profusely, he grabbed her elbows in his hands, making her to look directly at him, using force as well as words to make his point. "I am begging you. I will owe you forever if you help me find a way to break this to her where she doesn't fly off the handle."

What he anticipated she might do, the inspector had no idea, but his moaning was getting sick. He was clearly desperate, and Mary felt pity as well as disgust for his situation. Deep down, she knew she should be the mature one. She should be on his side, just as he'd been on hers when Alice was born. He wasn't doing anything wrong, and it wasn't fair of her to look down her nose at him just because his timing hadn't lined up correctly.

Still, there were selfish parts of Mary that she could never completely close down. She far from loved the idea of Mark playing house with his new bride and bouncing baby while her daughter inevitably got left out in the cold. At best, she would be embarrassed by the development. At worst, she would feel completely and utterly replaced. Was there a happy medium in there somewhere?

Instead of responding to Mark's woes right off the bat, she sighed and jerked herself free from his grip, deciding she needed details first.

"When is Jill due?"

"April sixth."

Mentally, Mary did some math, "So, she's…what? Sixteen weeks?"

"Closer to seventeen."

She let out a low whistle, "She's not hiding it for that much longer."

"Mary…" he was exasperated.

"Okay-okay; I'm just saying…" she held up her hands as though to block herself. "And, hey, she's lucky, if you ask me. With Alice, I was fat at twelve weeks, so you should feel blessed…"

"I'll hold off on that feeling," he remarked dryly. "Three guesses why – first two don't count."

Meanwhile, in the main part of the house, Norah had left Max to spar with a computerized opponent in order to get Robyn's attention. She had her nose buried in her magazine, eyes plumbing the pages for the best advice on how apply blue eye shadow and not look like a slut. Alice was still coloring away, but she'd switched to a purple crayon, making each girl's tutu a different feminine shade.

Norah had to nudge Robyn twice with her elbow to get her attention.

"What?" she finally said, miffed to have been pulled from the depths of such a vital makeup topic.

Norah jerked her head over her shoulder, "What do you think they're doing in there?"

Robyn was a little slow on the uptake, "Who?"

The older cousin puffed contemptuously, "Don't you ever pay attention? Seriously, it's no wonder you're getting D's…"

"I do not get D's, Norah," the younger protested. "One C is not a D, and that class is pointless, anyway."

"Whatever," the other brushed her off. "Didn't you see who came in?"

"No."

"You can't tell me blush and eyebrow pencils are _that_ interesting," Norah had never been one to make herself look glamorous, even a little bit. She was a tomboy through and through; dresses and rouge and fancy hair clips all-but gave her hives. "It's my dad and my mom…" she exposed. "They're in the bedroom. Talking. Arguing, more like."

"And?" Robyn clearly didn't consider this earth-shattering, but she also wasn't aware that there were to be white gowns and tuxedos donned before next summer ended. "If you're so curious about what they're saying, just go to the door and listen."

With that, she attempted to return to her magazine, but Norah was faster. She grabbed the slick papers in her fingers and snatched it out of her cousin's hand. Robyn opened her mouth to protest, but the older just tossed it onto the counter opposite them and blocked her path so she couldn't get to it.

"I'm not the one who's good at eavesdropping," she bargained.

"Oh, and I am?" the sixth grader worked to sound insulted, but it was a hard fact of her life that she was known for being an expert at gathering strands of gossip. "You can't pay me to stick my nose in the business of a bunch of old people. Who even cares? You're the one they're probably talking about."

"Which is why I can't be the one to listen."

"Norah, get real," Robyn groaned. "You don't have to be a genius to figure this out. You think Mary and Mark haven't picked up on how much you _loathe_ Jill? I bet they're hatching a plan to get you to like her or something…"

"They wouldn't do that."

"Says who?"

"Me," Norah insisted. "And, even if my dad would, my mom wouldn't."

"Then, you got me, but if you want to know what's going on, figure it out for yourself," the shorter hopped off her stool and tried to make a break for the opposite counter in order to retrieve the magazine once more, but Norah still stood in her way. "And, give that back to me…" trying to worm her way around the other body. "I wasn't finished with it."

"My parents never fight like this…" completely ignoring the twelve-year-old's request. "They argue, but not like they're really mad at each other. I could hear them a couple seconds after they shut the door."

"Well, they're already divorced, so I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Go down the hall and tell me what they're saying."

"Forget it!"

"Then this dumb ass book you want so bad is getting torn in two…" the threat came to her on an impulse, and she grabbed the Cosmo from where it was lying next to the sink, fingers poised and ready to rip. "What _will_ you do if you don't know how to curl your hair in the right direction?" her mocking tone was cruel, and Robyn clearly thought so as well.

"Norah, you are really mean sometimes!" she sounded like she meant it, which almost made the other feel guilty, but not guilty enough to give up. "You're going to destroy my stuff just because I won't spy on your parents?"

But, fortunately, it didn't come to that. Alice, who must've been terribly engrossed in her picture not to have interrupted before now, suddenly placed the last of her crayons in its box and spun on the stool to face the other two girls.

"I'll do it."

Both middle-schoolers took pause when she entered the fray, suspended in action, Norah with the magazine over her head, Robyn with her fingers outstretched trying to steal it. The elder Shannon wasn't used to her little sister being anything remotely resembling helpful, but she couldn't find fault with the offer.

"You will?" she knew she didn't keep the bewilderment out of her voice.

"Sure!" Alice chirruped, jumping down at once. "I like secrets."

Not wanting to look like she was too appreciative lest Alice get any ideas, the blonde rammed her finger in the direction of the hall, accustomed to being the one who gave orders.

"Then hurry up," she commanded. "And keep your mouth shut. If they find out you're out there, you'll spoil everything."

Choosing not to be insulted, Alice did as she was told, skipping off and leaving Norah to return the treasured teen pamphlet to its owner. Robyn glowered and reopened it, not really upset, as she was too accustomed to Norah to really be bothered by her. Both knew she wouldn't have followed through with her warning.

In the sequestered quarters, little had been accomplished, and while Mary knew she was being infinitely stubborn and also unreasonable, she couldn't make herself throw in the towel. She craved Norah's happiness so violently that she couldn't sign on for anything that meant adding to her stress and turmoil. It was childish and put Mark in a terrible position, but she held firm and fast on her point of view.

"Mark, I am not doing this for you…" she wagged her head, not about to be swayed. "You dug your own grave – made your own bed."

"I didn't ask you to do it for me, I asked you to lend a hand – soften the blow…" he went on, beginning to gesture wildly, arms flying indistinctly. "Is that really so difficult?"

"And, how do you suggest I do that?"

"I…I don't know…!" he spluttered disjointedly, eyes journeying skyward as though he hoped to find the answers in the heavens. "Just…stand by me, make it clear to Norah that what Jill and I are doing is not outrageous, they're just steps that people take, and that we aren't making all these transformations just to piss her off…"

"She'll think that no matter what I tell her, so you're dead in the water there…"

"This is supposed to be an exciting time for me!" he burst suddenly, at the end of his tether and through trying to be rational. "Why are you trying to take it away from me?!"

"I'm not!" Mary was stung that he would accuse her of this when, in her heart, she had recognized how his fun was being snuffed out even if she hadn't said so. "I'm just telling you that it's not my job to smooth things over! How is that 'taking' anything away?" her fingers formed pompous air quotes.

"I haven't exactly heard a congratulations!"

"I _said_ congratulations the other night when you told me about the wedding!"

Both were too entrenched in the heat of the moment to hear or pay any mind to the enthusiastic squeal that sounded just outside the door. Mary convinced herself it was Robyn or Alice putting their heads together and finding a cute outfit in the sixth grader's magazine – an outside chance it was Norah securing a victory in her game against Max.

"And so sincerely!" Mark snapped in response to her defense.

"Then why the hell do you want my blessing if you don't even buy it?"

"Because it's what _humans_ say when their friend is going to have a baby!"

Mary was fully prepared to pounce all over that affront, which implied she was cold and heartless. What was more, it wasn't _Mark_ having the baby, not technically – it was Jill. And, Jill was her acquaintance at best, certainly not her friend.

But, before she could get any of this out, another shriek sounded from beyond the confines of the bedroom, and this one was too loud to be ignored. Mary whipped around, knowing the noise was close enough that it couldn't legitimately have come from the living room or kitchen. Mark blinked in a disoriented way, as if he, like Mary, was abruptly realizing how foolish they had been to get so strident. He spoke first, but he didn't get very far.

"What…what was…?"

"They're getting _married_! They're getting _married_! Mark and Jill are getting married!"

Mary's brain as well as her feet kicked into overdrive. Mark's face was as stricken as hers, and he flew toward the door so quickly he nearly crashed into it, his fingers fumbling inexpertly over the knob.

"Shit!" Mary swore from behind him, knowing now exactly who had been doing the shouting, and whose pattering footsteps were disappearing up the corridor. "Shit-shit-shit!" if Alice had heard about the wedding, she'd also heard something else, and Mary had to shut her up or die trying. "What is wrong with you?! Open the door!"

"I'm trying!"

After what seemed like five minutes, the hatch swung out on its hinges and Mark almost sprawled to his knees trying to keep running. Whatever Mary's reservations about his unfolding chain of events, she was fully behind him now, both literally and figuratively. She shoved past him and went barreling back into the living room, but Alice was still screaming as if she were the town crier altering every soul within a ten mile radius of the momentous news.

"Mark and Jill are getting married!" it sounded worse when repeated.

" _What?!_ " that was Robyn, who leapt out of her seat with a look of goggle-eyed incredulity. "They are?!"

"Mommy said there's going to be a wedding!"

"Alice!" the name ruptured out of Mary's chest in the hopes that five letters would quiet her child before she could get any further, though a nasty feeling in her gut told her it wouldn't do any good. "Alice…!"

"Mark, are you really getting married?!" Robyn, alone, appeared jubilant, hands clasped in front of her chest like it was too good to be true. "That's so exciting!"

"Annnnnnnnd…!"

It was too late – Mary knew it was too late. No way would her six-year-old daughter be able to conceal something this epic. She could've thrown a hand over her mouth, dragged her out the door, bribed her with candy and cash, and there would be no stopping her. It was like watching a train wreck, and still she made the most futile of attempts to shut her down.

"Alice, wait!"

"They're going to have a baby!"

Crash! Boxcars, cabooses, rail cars filled with coal went careening into one another, jumping the tracks, rolling down hills, spilling their contents all over the grass. Sparks were flying from the wheels, fires were erupting in the underbrush – the locomotive was scrambling in all directions trying to stop the bleeding, but there was nothing to be done.

Breathless, useless, Mary and Mark arrested their chase, faces falling slack, efforts gone down the drain. Max's impassive features below them, where he sat on the rug in front of the television, might have been fog. Alice's celebratory dance faded by the second, as did Robyn's open-mouthed, delighted shock.

For, between them all was Norah. She had stood, gaping, staring at the pair of them with a look of utter betrayal and disbelief. Brown eyes wide, chin drifting slowly downward, hand white-knuckling the back of her stool, her wordless expression begged for an explanation. Prayed for a misunderstanding. Some sign it wasn't true.

Mary watched as she opened her mouth to say something, and yet nothing came out.

XXX

 **A/N: I'm not much for cliffhangers, and I am definitely not very mysterious, but I left it there! Thank-you to anyone reading and to everyone who has left kind comments!**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Whether or not you're reading or reviewing, I'll continue to post – can't help myself! :)**

XXX

Mary didn't know what to do. She felt like she'd stepped into some horrendously bad Lifetime movie, everyone frozen in their spots like the director had just called, "Cut!"

She and Mark stood, slump-shouldered, side-by-side halfway between the kitchen and living room, Mark panting as though he'd run around the block. Max had two hands fastened around his controller, his blue eyes staring upward, now without his glasses to obscure them. The pipey, canned music from the video game ran on a loop, deriding the seriousness of the situation. Alice had grabbed Robyn's hand and was swinging it back and forth, a beaming, enchanted smile on her face. Any second now, she might start jumping up and down. Robyn, too, was smiling, although it was more understated than her cousin's. She kept stealing looks at Norah, whose face had settled into an impenetrable mask of something between rage and unbridled disappointment.

Mary distinctly saw her oldest daughter swallow, which closed her slack-jaw momentarily. She thought her reaction might be similar to the one she had displayed when she'd found out about the wedding – confused, ruffled, seeking the need to be alone. However, when Mark moved toward her and away from his ex-wife, she backed up as though she were afraid of him. Her behind hit the stool she'd been sitting on and she stumbled.

The noise of the clanging metal against the island was like a sound cue in a play, for at that moment, Marshall wandered in from outside. The old T-shirt he had put on after work was streaked with dirt and his hair was unkempt on top. He seemed to sense he had stepped in at an inopportune time and looked to Mary for help, but it didn't get him very far.

"Something…going on?" he proposed cautiously.

It was as if he hadn't even spoken. Mary had to give Alice some margin of praise, albeit internally. She didn't recount the news for a fifth time, no doubt waiting just as everyone else was to see what would become of her currently mute big sister.

"Norah…" Mark's voice was decidedly gentle, approaching his daughter with slow steps. She continued to inch away, like she was fearsome about him being too close. "I'm really sorry; I didn't mean for you to find out like this…"

Dismay passed through the girl's already broad eyes. If she'd been capable of speaking, Mary knew exactly what she would've said: "So, it's true?"

"I was going to talk to you soon; honestly, I was…"

Still, the teenager did not say a word. Her gaze seemed transfixed on her father, as though he was suddenly a stranger.

"The timing just never seemed right, and that's no excuse, but…" Mark shook his head, ending his thought early, trying to move on to a different one. "…Jill is going to have a baby. In April, a few months before the wedding."

Alice let out a modest little yelp, yanking hard on Robyn's hand, like she could hardly believe her good fortune. It was such a contrast to Norah that it was sad, and the younger girl's reaction reminded Mary so much of how Robyn had behaved at such an age that it was frightening. Brandi's daughter, too, had been ecstatic about the possibility of an infant in the family – the infant at that time, of course, had been Alice. The same could not be said for Norah – then or now.

Perhaps thrown by the fact that nothing was being said, Mark decided to take the quiet while he could, using the hush to get everything out in the open, unwise though it might be.

"This is huge – I understand that this is huge…" he ventured even further forward so that he was probably three feet from Norah; Marshall took his place beside Mary, watching it all unfold. "And, I don't know how you feel about it, but I can't wait to see what becomes of this kid…" a nervous little laugh eked out. "I'm excited, Norah, and that's because of how wonderful it's been with you all these years, you know? I never thought I'd get another chance to be a dad…"

Poor choice of words. Mary fought recoiling, even though she knew Mark had not meant what he'd said the way it had come out – like he'd messed up his first chance, somehow. As it was, the smallest of flickers flashed in Norah's face at hearing his little speech, and her mother saw her gulp another time.

"But, it's a new beginning for me – for all of us…" it sounded like he was wrapping up. "An…adventure, right?"

Again, he chuckled feebly, likely hoping that she would muster up the courage to speak, but she only stared. Mary's mind was working quickly, trying to figure out if there was a way she and Marshall could herd the other kids out of the room so Mark and his child could have a few moments to themselves. Like it wasn't bad enough Norah had-had this development sprung on her, but having everyone witness her quest to digest it probably wasn't something she relished either. She deserved privacy.

Mark himself was obviously starting to become self-conscious, what with all his chattering, and he became impatient. Mary knew the second the request was out of his mouth that he was going to want to take it back.

"I really wish you'd say something."

Mary had no idea someone could flip on a dime so quickly, and she'd been a US Marshal for the better part of her life. The stoic, shaken Norah suddenly vanished so fast that it was like someone had turned a switch. Her quiet, dazed manner fell from her frame like a too-big coat. The minute she was given clearance to react, she certainly didn't disappoint.

"This is _disgusting!_ "

She yelled so loudly that Marshall actually jumped, and Mark's sigh was nearly inaudible. Norah projected her face so close to her father's that spit sprayed his cheek when she continued hollering. He was the one who looked dumbfounded now.

"I cannot believe you! You're old enough to be a _grandfather_! What the hell are you doing having another baby?!"

Alice gasped at the swearword, although Mary caught a weirdly energized glint in her eye upon hearing it. The female inspector also thought Norah's comment about Mark being practically geriatric was rather below-the-belt, but it wasn't entirely untrue, and teenagers were known for exaggerating. He'd wanted her to speak; she was getting the opportunity.

"Don't you _ever_ think about me?!" she was growing hoarse already from such brutal shouting, her face grower redder by the second. "You think it's going to be _fun_ having some bratty, bawling baby whining its stupid head off every two hours at night?! I guess you didn't get enough of that with me! But, oh, I forgot…!" she dripped with awful sarcasm as she cast an errant hand over her head. "You didn't give a crap about me when I was baby, since you stayed with mom only long enough to have some one-night stand!"

"That is not true; don't talk that way!" Mark seemed panicky about speaking up, but he couldn't help the compulsion to shield himself. "Norah, you don't need to be jealous; this isn't a competition; no one is taking your place…"

"I am not _jealous_!" she barked. "What the hell would I have to be jealous of?!"

"Then what are you?"

She didn't entirely answer, "You are sick! Both of you – you and Jill; _both_ of you are _sick_!" she pounded it into his brain, pointing a sharp finger about three inches from his nose. "Did you have sex while I was in the house?"

Mark's cheeks flushed so badly he resembled a ripe radish.

"Norah!" he was scandalized she would bring up his intimate life, Mary could tell. "What has gotten into you? I'm not going to…"

"Answer me!"

"It's none of your business!" he countered.

"It's none of my business when you dump me with some pooping little mutant without even asking me how feel?!" she was cutting it very fine; Mark's eyes were blazing; he looked more equipped to battle back, but Norah wasn't done. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised with the way Jill moons all over you that she dragged you to bed before you even got married…"

"Enough!" Mark sounded madder than Mary had ever heard him; she longed to jump between them, to break things up, but this wasn't her fight. Norah flinched, but otherwise stayed put. "I've heard enough! You are entitled to be upset; you're not entitled to be hurtful to Jill! Not everything is about you, Norah!"

He could not have picked a worse thing to say. For a split second, Mary actually thought Norah might try to strike him, and then they would really be in trouble. But, she didn't. Instead, an anguished howl erupted from somewhere deep in her throat, one that indicated tears were not far away, although her mother knew she would fight to the bitter end before she let them show.

" _Nothing_ is about me!" she cried. "I _hate_ you!"

With that, she turned on her heel and stalked across the room toward the front door, which she wrenched open before anyone could stop her. Mary didn't know where she intended to go, but she had no notions of letting her get far when she was in such a temper. Moronically, she called out to her child before the door could slam closed, for all the good it did.

"Bug, don't…!"

But, there was a resounding thud and then she was gone. Max gave a start, his eyes straying toward the carpet as though he were mortified to look at any of them. Robyn was no longer smiling, but glancing from one face to another like she wanted authorization to speak. Mark briefly covered his face with his hands and then brushed them through his hair, saying nothing, but meandering back in the direction of the bedroom, not asking that anyone follow him.

Alice, alone, was dancing animatedly on the spot, as if she couldn't decide what to say or do first. She was fairly used to Norah's outbursts, and her tantrum didn't seem to have any effect on her whatsoever.

"I bet the baby's a girl!" her self-awareness was at an all-time low, although she didn't seem to care whether anyone acknowledged her or not. "Don't you think so, Robyn? No boys allowed!" she stuck out her tongue in her exuberance.

The brunette was expertly ignored, Mary knowing she could not just stand around another second. Brushing Marshall's arm, she made for the door.

"I need to go and get her, there's no telling what she'll do with the mood she's in…"

But, Marshall gripped her elbow and held her back, "Let me go," he insisted. And, when Mary appeared mystified, "Please. Let me talk to her."

This was a man that it was hard to say no to, and even though the woman was dying to know what was going on in her daughter's head right now, even she knew Marshall was the more practical choice. His perpetual calm, his ability to keep his judgments to himself, would surely be just what Norah needed. The only thing she worried about was how much he would share with her once all was said and done. They told each other just about everything, but once in awhile his step-daughter asked him to keep a confidence if possible, and he was forever true to his word.

But, though she was aching to know the gnarliest details, she knew it was imperative she step aside. She just hoped she did it even semi-gracefully.

"Just…holler if you need something…" she offered up, shoving her hands in her pockets, glad Alice had found Robyn to whisper with. "I guess I should probably stay and make sure Mark's blood pressure doesn't go through the roof. Knows how to pack a punch, doesn't she?"

Marshall winked, "Like her mama."

Mary took this as a compliment and hunched her shoulders indifferently, "I don't know what you're gonna say, but good luck."

"Not to toot my own horn, but I can be something of a pro at thinking on my feet."

Only he could make jokes at a time like this, but his wife didn't bother to correct him. Rather, she turned her back, giving him permission to move on. She rumpled Max's hair on her way back to the bedroom, showing she hadn't forgotten him, knowing how he despised tension. Marshall, meanwhile, went in the opposite direction, disappearing out into the almost stifling outdoors, hoping Norah hadn't managed to get too far.

Mark's car was parked in the driveway, concealing a portion of the expanse of street in front of him, but it didn't make any difference in this instance. Marshall heard Norah before he saw her, although it didn't take much scouting. She was sitting on the curb, knees pulled to her chest, her head bowed. Even from a distance, the man knew she was crying, given the way her shoulders trembled and the tortured, uncontrolled noises she was making.

Even though it didn't surprise him, it made him more melancholy than he would've expected. Norah was a loose cannon these days, but she rarely shed tears, at least in the presence of others. He supposed, though, that she had banked on being alone at the moment, so his emergence didn't count as sobbing in front of someone.

He decided to give her a moment, fanning his dirty shirt in the heat, noticing as he did so that Norah had pushed up the sleeves of the sweatshirt she'd worn to school. She was going to be roasting before long, her cheeks flushed from her show of emotion. With a sigh, he eventually proceeded forward, his cowboy boots not making much noise on the pavement. But, he had the distinct feeling she knew he was there now, for there had been a hitch in her breathing when he was about halfway down the drive.

Once close enough, being mindful not to startle her, Marshall laid a hand on her shoulder and lowered himself down beside her. She didn't stem her tears in the least; if anything, she cried harder – out of embarrassment or shame or pure displeasure, the chief couldn't be sure. But, there was no hesitation. The second he was situated, her head flopped into his chest and she buried her face in his shirt, covering her display from the outside world.

For several minutes, they simply sat, Norah bawling and shuddering, Marshall with his arm around her, rubbing her shoulder and staring dreamily out at the row of houses in front of him. The sun was getting that shine it often did in the late afternoon – more of a muted orange glow, casting the mountains and surrounding scenery in a ginger orb. A warm, autumn snow globe – just with rich leaves instead of fast-spinning flakes.

It took Norah a little while to calm down, but when she did, she became hiccupy and breathless. Marshall kissed her temple lightly and jostled her arm, guiding her face partway out of his chest.

"I'm a horrible person," she finally croaked.

Guilt. That was what it was. Along with a whole slew of other things she was probably too perplexed to distinguish.

"Not my champ," Marshall murmured lovingly, although the way she'd behaved didn't exactly equate with such an assertion.

"You're a liar," a moan. "You saw me. You heard me. I was awful."

" _Acting_ awful doesn't actually _make_ you awful," he persisted. "And, in any case, how you perform under taxing, unforeseen circumstances isn't the best gauge of one's character."

Norah sniffled, but did not sit up, continuing to speak with her head under Marshall's chin. This meant she didn't have to look at him – didn't have to face her demons.

"Why?"

"Why…what?" the man wanted clarification, giving her shoulder a particularly rough squeeze.

"Why are they doing this now?" she groaned. "How can they? Why do they _need_ another kid?"

Rather than attempt to placate her by explaining the forecasted feelings of Mark and Jill, because he knew the thirteen year old would hate that, he placed the question back on her. He was dying for her to come out of her cocoon and face him, not just because it was getting hot all huddled together, but because he could better understand her when he could see her eyes. But, he didn't push it.

"Why are you against it?" he proposed neutrally, not a hint of his opinion etched within.

Norah didn't really seem to know, although he didn't entirely expect her to. She tried, though.

"It's just…more time…" she fumbled, wiggling an arm out to wipe her nose on her sleeve. "More time they'll have…together…all of them…" another sniff. "More ways the three of them will be alike. Like you and mom and Alice are alike. Like Peter and Brandi and Robyn and Max are alike."

He was getting it now, and was about to say so, but her next phrase was so heartbreaking that he couldn't bring himself to voice his understanding.

"Why aren't I enough for anyone?"

Marshall actually felt his breath stop in his chest, like it was caught in his lungs. It made his inhales and exhales constricted, like he had to work twice as hard to force them through his windpipe. He'd known Norah was having trouble lately, and he also knew she could be theatrical, but something told him this painful query wasn't for show.

His immediate inclination, of course, was to refute her beliefs six ways to Sunday. But, he was also fairly certain that wouldn't go over very well. He didn't think perseverance on his part was really going to change her mind or make her feel any differently, at least not right now.

"Would it matter if I told you that you're so much _more_ than enough that we just can't get enough of you? Therefore, we've all felt the need to create...additional Norahs…?" it wasn't like him to be quite so hokey with her, but it was the best he could do. "Do you buy a word of that?" he couldn't resist asking.

"No," she whispered, making her step-father's heart sink down a little further. "I'm supposed to think you and mom had Alice just so you could have another girl like me?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

"Yes," here, she finally pulled away from him, mopping her dripping eyes with her palms; her face was splotchy in the natural light of the imminent dusk. "I know why you guys had Alice, just like I know why Mark and Jill are having _this_ baby."

"Explain it to me like I'm four, then."

Marshall thought he saw a hint of a smile, wobbly though it was, but she didn't crack. She was still trapped in her own suffering right now, and she wasn't going to let him think she was getting over it so quickly.

"They want a kid of their _own_. Like you and mom wanted a kid of _your_ own."

Norah said it with such scorn, and although it wasn't as black and white as she made it sound, Marshall had a hard time telling her that her conjecture was false. There had been a definite part of him when he and Mary had gotten together that had wanted a child that was his own flesh and blood, not that he didn't think of Norah that way. It made their union seem official, somehow. It cemented them in a way rings and 'I do' never had. He wouldn't be surprised if Mark and Jill expressed the same sentiment.

And yet, where did that leave Norah? She had been adored her entire life, but she had never exclusively belonged to any one family. She'd always had, at the very least, two of them – the one with Mary and Marshall, and the one with Mark. Mary's and Marshall's had eventually included Robyn, Max, and Alice, to go along with Brandi, Peter, and Jinx. Mark's had once been small, just he and Joanna. No longer.

Norah must've sensed that he was starting to clue in, because she powered on without waiting for him to respond.

"It's like there was _never_ a time when it was _just_ me…" the way she placed emphasis on certain words added to the melodrama. "You, me, dad, mom, grandma, Jinx, and Brandi. Even Robyn has almost always been here," with less than a year's difference in age between them, this couldn't be denied. "And, it's not like if there was some year or something where I was the only one that I'd remember it anyway. I was too little."

Marshall sighed, knowing she was correct, and found himself spooling an arm around her back again. She didn't submerge herself this time, instead tipping her head onto his shoulder, the wavering mountains in the distance reflected in her large, chocolate eyes.

He could grasp the need to feel special, to stand alone and be the most important person in the room. But, that was the hazard of growing families, even ones that didn't include children. There were marriages and deaths, U-Haul trucks and buying new school supplies year after year. Life marched on. Everyone grew older, novelties wore off, and when there were more individuals to navigate amongst, it was easy to see how your shine wore off.

And, in Norah's case, she didn't fit in a single group. There were the Alperts. There were the Shannons. There were the Manns. And, now, there would be the Stubers. Complete with a newborn to tie together the perfect family portrait. Norah must feel that nobody wanted her lurking in the background, muddying up everyone's 'real' families with her half-blood status.

To voice all this would be too strenuous, and so Marshall did what he could to take a different tack, hoping it would do the trick.

"Well, I doubt this will be of much comfort to you…" he surmised, aiming low with the intention that if he downplayed the story, Norah would be pleasantly surprised by the end. "Because you were indeed far too small to have any recollection. In fact, you had not yet materialized this side of the earth, if you get my meaning…"

"I would if you'd speak English."

She was _so_ like Mary.

"But, I hope you don't think that no one was excited when we discovered mom was pregnant."

"Please," she scoffed. "I was an accident. And, dad didn't know anything about me until a few days before I was born. Plus, I know mom almost gave me up."

This painted a pretty bleak picture, but Marshall wasn't going to let it cloud the deeper, sweeter facets floating underneath. It was true her entrance and very existence had been unconventional, but he planned to let her know that wasn't _all_ it had been.

"Maybe so," he conceded briefly. "But, do you know who the first person to find out about you was?"

"Duh. Mom."

"No," he corrected. "Me."

He'd definitely stumped her, that was for sure. She blinked curiously up at him, seemingly forgetting for the moment of all that had been dropped on her that afternoon – about hats of pink and blue, bouquets of flowers, and shiny new hardwood floors. Right now, all she was interested in was this tale of her very being to which she had yet to be privy. Marshall crossed his fingers that he was able to do it justice.

"What?" Norah's lip curled on one side when she was skeptical.

"Mom and I went to Pennsylvania several weeks after your dad had been here to visit," he didn't mention the reason for the trip, as it was WITSEC-classified. "And, the people we stayed with definitely knew their way around a stove. They made enough apple pie to last us through Thanksgiving _and_ Christmas."

"So?"

" _So_ …" Marshall pressed. "Mom devoured more than her fair share. I mean, she does that anyway, we both know how she likes to eat…" a small tease. "But, this was a little overboard, if you get my drift. And, after we got home, we had a tough case to work on, and what she'd usually do in that situation is down three cups of coffee a day. But, she threw up every time she tried…"

"Gross…"

"Gross is right, especially since I got to be the sole spectator most of the time," he recalled. "And, your mother is hardly a heavy woman, and so I couldn't help noticing when she got a little, shall we say…" he hesitated; wondering if being funny was the right move. " _Thicker_ through the middle."

"And she couldn't guess what was going on?" the seventh grader marveled. "Was she blind?"

"I was beginning to think so," he admitted. "Because, I had a rather astute idea of the culprit. The offender was _you_ , my friend…" poking a finger in her chest. "But, it took mom a little longer to put all the pieces together."

"So, what happened when she did?"

All the residue on her cheeks had dried now, and while her skin was still rosy, there was a fiery appetite for more that was coursing in her eyes. Her step-father had drawn her into a world only she had been a part of. In some ways, it didn't matter if she couldn't remember it. She'd been there. The only creature, the only person on anyone's mind. That was what she craved.

"I was the first person she told," Marshall went on, feeling light harking back to that time himself. "But, by the time she worked up the nerve, I already knew."

"Yeah?"

"Yep," a nod. "I like to think I gave her something of a fright when she was squirming around trying to determine how to reveal it to me, only to discover I was two steps ahead."

"I'll bet."

"Everything was brand new with you, gorgeous. All of it. And mom might've been pretty disoriented at first, but that doesn't mean the rest of us weren't right on board."

"What'd Jinx and Brandi do?"

"Ambushed mom at the doctor's office after breaking into the house and finding her appointment card on the fridge."

Norah let out a genuine giggle, no doubt able to picture this as vividly as if it were happening right in front of her. A hand clamped over her mouth to stifle the sound, but Marshall caught it anyway.

"What about Stan?" she pushed on.

"He spotted mom trying to get out of her car at work – none too gracefully, I might add – and kind of tripped over himself trying to be accommodating, only to tell her she resembled an elephant and that she might have to take the service elevator once she expanded enough…"

Now the girl was truly howling, unable to fathom that everyone in her life had once been so awkward about something that had almost overnight grown to be commonplace. The arrivals of Robyn and Max and Alice had made them experts, looking at the advent of offspring as a momentous, but not unusual event. With Norah, it had been foreign. They had felt their way along in the dark, searching endlessly for familiarities, wanting to do their best for this tiny being about to be the biggest part of their lives.

"Why were you all so dumb?" she wanted to know.

"Hey, now, don't speak for all of us," the chief feigned offense. "I'll have you know I was everyone's biggest resource. I was more than ready for you to show your face so we could get cracking."

"How'd you know mom was gonna keep me?"

There was no flowery explanation for this, even when you asked Marshall, who tended to go past necessary with his philosophies. He kept it short and simple.

"Because I know mom. I just…" a measured bob of his head. "I just knew."

"Were you there when I was born?"

A memory stirred in Marshall; he was pretty sure Norah already knew the details of her arrival – who had been present and who had not. But, if she wanted the minutiae again, he supposed he had no good reason to deny her, especially when she seemed to be cheering up a lot faster than he would've expected.

"Depends on what you mean by 'there,'" he mused. "I was there when mom went into labor."

"Just you?"

"More or less. Although, it wasn't just me for long."

It had been so long since Marshall had thought about this, and it was as enlightening for him as he hoped it was for Norah. He could see the steamy August afternoon in his mind's eye – Mary covered in soot, hair rumpled, the pair of them all-but knocking knees side-by-side on the steps of the _chuppah_. If he was being honest, it was then that he had really known Mary had plans to become a mother, even before she'd doubled-over and reached for his hand. The softened, slightly fearful, but determined look in her eye as she'd recounted racing from flying bullets in the courthouse had solidified her decision. If she could protect her child from that, she could protect her from anything – and better than any couple combined.

"As you well know, you were in something of a hurry, so we had to act pretty fast," the man continued. "And, I wasn't around when you actually made your appearance. I was in the waiting room, though."

"Just you?" a repetition.

"Me and Stan."

"What about Jinx?"

"She was with mom – and your dad."

The teenager already knew about Brandi having flown the coop that day, so she didn't question her whereabouts. What she did do was press further and further, starving for the single year she had been everyone's one and only. It hadn't even been that long, as Robyn had been born just before she'd turned one, but it was long enough for her to savor, even if she could have no memory of the experiences. It was nice to know they had occurred, just the same.

"Did mom ever take me to the office?" she'd never once been allowed to set foot there once she'd reached an age where she could overhear things.

"Once in awhile," Marshall informed her, leaning his elbows on his knees, admiring the way her blonde hair caught the setting sun and glimmered faintly like gold. "Stan did a tango with you around our conference room one day when we were enlisted to baby sit. I performed a gripping production of Shakespeare's 'King Lear' for you – complete with actions."

"No way," a radiant giggle. 

"Way," he batted back, sounding like the seventh grader she was. "You ate it up, I assure you."

"Sure I did."

"Jinx dressed you in tutus."

"Yeah, I knew that."

"Joanna gave you dinosaurs to play with."

"I bet dad never did those things."

This brought a screeching halt to what had been turning into lively banter, and Marshall couldn't help his mouth from turning down it what might've been a comical frown, had he not been so disheartened to hear Norah's assumption. She needed a reason to hate Mark. Despising him for daring to move on with his life would become petty the longer it lasted, and so she needed back-up – a plethora of excuses for why he was never the father to her that he was going to be to Jill's little one. Like it or not, Norah felt replaced and traded in, and even it wasn't true, it didn't erase the emotion.

But, she knew as well as anyone that Mark had been no deadbeat. And, Marshall was going to go out on a limb and remind her.

"I bet he did," he said gently, looking at her out of his pale, periwinkle eyes. "I mean, maybe he didn't recite Shakespeare, but that doesn't make him a slouch. He loved you just like the rest of us did."

Norah gave no response to this, and instead scuffed her sneakers on the ground, kicking up a few rocks and sending them tumbling along the gutter.

"In fact, when mom's dad showed up here in town and shook everything up, he and I were the ones that hung out with you," he dipped his chin in hopes of catching her eye. "Same deal when Robyn was born. You stayed with me while mom was at the hospital with Brandi, and your dad just couldn't keep away. He was at my house all afternoon," he didn't mention Abigail.

Still no answer; she was becoming surly and contemplative again. Marshall hoped the waterworks were over, but a cloud had definitely settled over what had seconds earlier been relative ease. He ought to have known it couldn't last. Teenagers were known for their mood swings, and when you were Mary Shannon's teenager, you could bet no unguarded moment was safe.

But, with Norah's eyes still on the ground, he kept babbling, hoping to gain just a tiny piece of that simplicity back.

"Did you know you learned to walk the night Robyn was born?"

A sputter of attention as she barely looked at him, "I did?"

"Absolutely," he claimed. "That's because you weren't _about_ to be upstaged. No baby was going to be more or less important – or more or less entertaining, for that matter – than you. That's still true, you know."

She ignored this for the most part, "Dad was there when I walked?" she murmured, turning a stone around and around in her fingers.

Marshall hated to disappoint her, "No…" he admitted. "It was me and mom."

"Yeah…" grousing beneath her breath. "That's 'cause _you're_ a good dad."

Some of that old malice crept its way in, and the chief knew it had been on purpose. She didn't really want to fight with him, but she wasn't going down without making it perfectly plain that her feelings had not changed. An insult wrapped in a compliment was skillful in displaying that she did not think very much of her father right now, and she was daring everyone, starting with Marshall, to tell her otherwise.

"I like to think so," his reply was impartial, not bringing Mark into it. "I suppose we could let Alice make the call."

Norah jeered, "What does she know? I've seen way more dads than her…" between Marshall, Mark, and Peter. "And, she's the lucky one…"

Then, she looked right at him, and he was struck, all of a sudden, by how dissimilar she was from Mary. All these years, he'd been noting their parallels – looks and otherwise – but, Mary had been a lot older than thirteen before she'd learned to express what was really in her mind, to give others their due. And yet, here was Norah, just over a decade old, and wearing her heart on her sleeve already.

"Alice, I mean…" a clarification. "She's the lucky one. _She_ has the best dad there is."

XXX

 **A/N: So, you might think Norah is the queen of overreaction, or you might think she's being totally rational – hard to say! I hope you enjoyed her time with Marshall, in any case!**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: So pleased to have had some catch-up reviews!**

XXX

"Can I be in the wedding?"

"I don't know."

"Will Norah be in the wedding?"

"I don't know."

"Where will the wedding be?"

"I don't know."

"When _is_ the wedding?"

"I don't _know_ , Little Bit."

Mary had been trying, fruitlessly, it would seem, to keep a lid on her exasperation, but the lateness of the hour had her patience thinning more by the second. Per their typical Friday night routine, Alice got to stay up an hour later than usual, and she was currently in her mother's lap on the sofa, damp under her pajamas from a bath, brunette ringlets as curly as ever. She was also firing questions at Mary non-stop, as if she knew every waking facet of the upcoming nuptials, when in reality her intelligence on the subject was extremely limited.

Part of the inspector was glad that at least one of her children was high-spirited when it came to an organ belting out Pachelbel Canon and posed portraits one day to be framed in gold. She just wished it were the child who was going to have to cope with the aftermath that a wedding brought – a marriage.

The TV was droning mindlessly behind the pair, the sound turned down low, Marshall putting the last of the plates and spoons in the dishwasher. The Alperts were back to being a family of four in their own home, Peter returned from his business endeavors at last. Norah, unsurprisingly, was shut up in her bedroom. Judging by the total darkness coming from the slight crack under her door, she had already gone to bed.

That left Mary with a six-year-old bouncing on her stomach, heart-printed pajamas fresh and clean from a tumble in the washer the day before. Alice smelled of soap and her cheeks were gleaming, just a hint of rose in her flesh. Her fingers danced up and down her mother's chest from where the duo lay sprawled on the couch. Evidently, the promise of church bells and a plump, cherub-cheeked baby soon to be in their midst made it hard to go to sleep.

"Will Mark and Jill have the wedding before or after the baby comes?" Alice was relentless, but Mary was glad that, at least this time, she could give a less ambiguous reply.

"After, at least according to Mark," she reported, threading her fingers through the little girl's waves. "It'll give them a few months to get used to life with a newborn before trying to plan some enormous party. That's kind of what dad and I did after you were born."

"I know," Alice giggled. "Norah was a flower girl, right?"

"She was," the woman confirmed, wishing she could look back on her older daughter's performance with something other than discontent. "She wasn't such a fan of it, though. She was just a little bit older than you are now and she wore shorts underneath her dress. It came off the second she made it up the aisle."

"The shorts?" Alice raised her eyebrows, no doubt picturing her sister wearing nothing beneath the intricate skirt, not even underwear.

"No, the dress," Mary corrected. "It was light blue with little white flowers. She actually looked pretty cute in it, but she couldn't have hated it more."

In truth, the blonde couldn't remember another time Norah had ever worn a dress. She avoided anything so feminine at all costs, preferring to leave those waters to her cousin and sister. Even when Jinx had died, she'd worn pants to both the visitation and the funeral, while Robyn and Alice had been dolled up. And yet, Mary knew without even asking that she wasn't going to be able to get away with something any less than a uniform outfit when it came time for Mark and Jill to tie the knot. Just something else to depress the teenager.

"Will Jill have a flower girl?" Alice chattered on, no longer interested in Norah's experience with brides and grooms.

"I don't know," Mary shook her head, back to ignorance and her tried-and-true retort.

"I could do it!" she had known this was coming. "I'd be real good at it! I wouldn't throw the flowers too far or get them on people's heads! I'd be careful, and I'd stand right up front, and I wouldn't wiggle around."

It seemed she had this all thought out, her eyes alight with fervor at the prospects, but Mary couldn't let her get ahead of herself.

"Well, Jill may have someone else in mind," the mother proclaimed. "I don't think she and Mark have really planned very much yet. When it gets closer, we'll know more."

"Will Jill wear white?"

"I don't know," a sigh, as this was getting rather old; she wanted to turn her child off and send her to bed so she could have some time to discuss everything that had gone down with Marshall. "But, probably," she figured. "Most gals who get married do."

"Did you?"

"You've seen my wedding pictures, Little Bit," Mary reminded her. "You know what I wore," her gown had, indeed, been white, mostly at the requests of Jinx and Brandi.

"What about when you married Mark?" she suddenly proposed, alarming the inspector out of her partial reverie to a stance that was slightly more alert. "Did you have white on then?"

This took Mary a little longer to come up with, mostly because she was trying to determine what would possess her first grader to be quite so nosy, even though she knew it was only innocent curiosity. Still, Alice never behaved as though her mother and Norah's father had ever been an item – she'd never known a couple other than her own parents. Trying to romanticize anything between them was just short of laughable. She'd only been seventeen when she'd exchanged vows with Mark, immature as they'd been – not much older than Norah.

If that wasn't a frightening thought, Mary didn't know what was. She did her best to put it out of her mind.

"I didn't even wear a _dress_ when I married Mark…" for some reason, this embarrassed her; her face grew slightly pink, though she couldn't pin down why. "Let alone white."

"So, what'd you have on?"

"Jeans," Mary shrugged. "A plaid shirt – I think it was mostly red, with buttons running up the center."

"Mommy!" Alice squealed, as if she couldn't imagine something so scandalous. "That's silly! What sort of wedding was it?"

"It wasn't what you'd call the normal kind," a more truthful admission. "Mark and I eloped."

The girl wrinkled her nose, one of the few things that strengthened her resemblance to her mother, "What does that mean?"

"That we ran off and got hitched without telling anyone," she said bluntly. "We were in this cheap, tacky little chapel outside town. Mark did wear a tie, but that was only because he'd just come from work," she laughed sardonically. "We said 'I do,' and then we sat in the back of Mark's pick-up truck and had ice cream cones from McDonald's – plus beer. It wasn't exactly fancy."

"Oh, I don't know about that…" Marshall suddenly appeared, wiping his hands on his jeans and staring fondly down at the pair of them. "A little simplicity never hurt anyone. I'd say the wedding was proportionate to the marriage."

"Well, you've got that right," his wife murmured in an undertone. "Alice…" raising it back to its usual pitch. "I wasn't even married to Mark for two days. It was the very definition of 'shotgun,'" not that she would understand the terminology, but she could get the gist.

"Oh…" the child seemed undeterred, and kept right on babbling even after her father relieved the pressure on Mary's lap and lifted her high into his arms. "So, his wedding to Jill will be like his _real_ one, right?"

Mary couldn't honestly say she'd thought of it that way, and it made her mourn her makeshift ceremony just a little bit, with its gumball-machine rings and wilting boutonnieres. They'd done the best they could at the time, but it felt like a thousand years ago. And, regardless, there was no reason for her to feel slighted by Alice's comment. She'd had _her_ 'real' wedding. Now Mark was going to have his.

"I guess you could say that," she found herself agreeing. "But, you're going to have to leave the rest of your survey for Brides Magazine for another night. You need to get to bed," reaching out and tweaking one of her bare toes, causing her to giggle and squirm further into Marshall's arms.

"Can't I have a few more minutes?" she bargained, right on schedule. "I'm not even tired!" Mary certainly bought that. "Besides, I didn't have dance tonight, and daddy says when I can't wiggle my sillies out then I bounce off the walls!"

Marshall smirked at his own ridiculous phrasing coming back to haunt him, which earned him an annoyed look from his partner. Leave it to Alice to have such an impeccable memory. That didn't mean it was going to earn her any extra seconds out of her covers, however.

"What I said is true," the man stood by his convictions. "You are a livewire when you haven't been tangoing with Lia…"

"We don't _tango_ , daddy…" she waved an errant hand in his face. "She only does that dance with Stan."

Skating over this, "Be that as it may," he cut her off. "You need your beauty sleep, Big Al."

"You mean I'm not _beautiful_ already?" she even fluffed out her curls and batted her eyelashes, a move she had most likely learned from Robyn.

"All right, I stand corrected on that, gorgeous," her father stated. "But, it doesn't change the facts. Rest is essential to one's growing body, and you are shooting up like a weed by the day – don't want to stunt it now." And, before she could argue further, "Say goodnight to mom and I'll tuck you in. Unless…" he cast probing eyes at Mary. "You'd rather do the honors?"

"I think I'll leave this case to you," she told him, using minor WITSEC lingo. Getting to her feet, she adjusted her top around her middle and leaned in to kiss her baby's cheek. "Sleep well, Little Bit. See you in the morning."

But, with nary a word about bedtime stories, the little girl clung to the promise of tomorrow. At least Mary had one child that was looking forward to getting up with the sun when it inevitably ascended in the east once dawn showed its blushing face.

"Do I get to go shopping with Brandi and Robyn?"

The essentials had yet to be hashed out, but Mary had somehow found a time – between snooping six-year-olds and volcanic teenagers – to call her sister and set up an afternoon for the aunt to inspect Halloween accessories with her niece and Robyn. With Peter only having just returned, she had thought Brandi might balk, wanting to spend an uneventful weekend at home. But, she must've sensed how important it was to Mary and had agreed, although not without pointed asides about how Raph probably hadn't aged a day and was as smoking as ever.

"Yes, you are," the blonde was glad to have some semblance of good news. "But, try to keep an open mind, Little Bit. There are only so many costumes in the world. You may have to bite the bullet and buy something at least one other person has worn."

But, Alice was stubborn and shook her head, "We'll see about that."

"I guess we will," Mary ended the conversation there. "Now, goodnight."

Accepting her fate, the little girl bobbed her head in assent, "Night mommy. I love you."

"I love you too."

With that, Marshall toted the child across the room and down the hall, entering the confines of her bedroom quietly, so as not to disturb a slumbering Norah. Mary heard the door open and shut almost noiselessly, and then the house was quiet; only the dishwasher hummed, creating a gentle, steady rhythm, Mary silently thankful to have made it through another day.

As she folded up the blankets on the couch and fluffed the pillows, she reflected how baffling it still was to her that she had raised two girls that had turned out so drastically different. Yes, neither one was finished growing up, but she didn't imagine even when they were old that they would be that similar. Many times, it was impossible to believe they were sisters, even half-sisters. They didn't look alike, they didn't act the same, they didn't even have many identical mannerisms. It was as if Norah had come solely from Mary and Alice solely from Marshall.

Not for the first time, the inspector remembered how her mother had gone through the same thing – one child that took after her mother, and another that took after her father. The thought brought chills to Mary's spine now, because she liked to think she was nothing like James, especially this far beyond his existence and even his death. But, it couldn't be disputed that Brandi had always favored Jinx, whereas Mary never had. So, where had her influence come from? If she wasn't like Jinx and she wasn't like James, where did she fit in?

Suddenly, she couldn't help feeling even more badly for Norah than she already did. It was so hard not to mesh with even a single person, and that must be what she'd been experiencing for what felt like ages now. Though she didn't wish Alice ill for a second, a small, selfish part of her wished the girls could trade places, at least until the birth and wedding were over and done with. It was going to be a long six months if Norah continued to be churlish.

Once Marshall returned, his wife was back on the couch, fiddling with the fringe on a blanket she had creased, absorbed in her own thoughts, forgetting for a moment how much she'd longed to speak to her husband about everything going on.

"She is a talker, that one…" he greeted her, flopping down at her side and scratching his scalp with his long nails. "Sometimes I wonder how she gets any sleep at all, the way she races through the green _and_ red lights – figuratively speaking, of course."

Used to Marshall's metaphors, Mary didn't answer right away, staring blankly as he transferred his fingers to her hair, twirling a honey strand around his index finger.

"Penny for your thoughts," he teed up after a few quiet moments.

"Cheapskate," she joshed in order to stall. "You aren't analyzing my already addled brain for only one cent. Ten bucks, minimum," she even held out a hand, as though she were serious. "Cough it up, Poindexter."

"Well, I walked right into that one, didn't I?" as he spoke, he guided Mary into his chest, much as he had done with Norah that afternoon. She loved how safe she still felt in his arms. "Should I just deduct ten George Washington's from my next paycheck?"

"Yeah, right," Mary ridiculed him. "You may be the chief, but you have nothing to do with the money. Those douche bags in DC are the ones who funnel the dough – or, don't, as the case may be."

"True…" he lamented with a soft smile. "True."

Again, this submerged them into silence, but it was more comfortable than Mary would've anticipated. She wanted to give away what was on her mind, mostly because her partner was always so efficient at fixing any problem she had as though all it took was a band-aid a few well-spoken words. But, if the last year with Norah had been any indication, it was that even someone as bright as Marshall didn't know everything.

This, alone, made her feel strangely downhearted, and without any notice. She hadn't been like most children, who had to figure out at some point that her parents weren't perfect. She'd known as soon as she could walk and talk that she was living with a pair of amateurs, although Jinx had certainly matured with time. It was really Marshall that she'd always believed had hung the moon, the larger-than-life being that could do no wrong and was always there to scoop her right up if she fell. To learn he really was mortal, though deep down she'd always known it, was somehow babyishly disappointing.

Harking back to what she'd been thinking before he'd come back from the girls' room, she just hoped she could get through her mess of musings without making it sound like she was brooding endlessly, day and night.

"I was just…" a sigh before she really got started; it was hard to concentrate with her husband's fingers playing in her hair like a musician might tune a fiddle. "I was just thinking…and it's stupid…" a preface, but she didn't give Marshall a chance to refute her. "…Because you can't go back, you can't think about what might've been…" she ought to know that better than anyone. "But…"

She swallowed hard, and she was surprised to find that her mouth was dry. This was a sure sign of nerves, something that faintly annoyed her. Marshall was her husband. If she couldn't talk to him, she couldn't talk to anyone.

"…I wish I could talk to my mom."

The admission seemed to hang heavy in the air, giving Mary far too much time to absorb what she'd allowed into the open. In reality, it was probably only a few seconds before Marshall came back with a reply, but whenever she allowed herself to be vulnerable she always felt like she was on display.

"What would you say if you could?" the man questioned.

Mary's immediate thought, one she did not allow him to ponder, was that she needed Jinx – for support, for an ear, for advice, all things she had rarely utilized when her mother was alive. But, she opted to tone it down to something more manageable. There was no call to open so many wounds when it was already getting late.

"I would want to know what she'd do, scary as that is…" a gloomy joke, just to prove she hadn't lost her sour ways. "She had to deal with multiple families – it was practically a hundred years after she'd been with my dad, but still. She had to finagle two kids who were at each other's throats and about as compatible as socks and sandals…"

"But, look at you and Brandi now," Marshall interrupted, obviously seeking some sort of positivity. "Would you have ever guessed all those years ago that you'd be as close as you are?"

"No, but…"

"So, there's hope for Norah and Alice yet. Not to mention Norah and the anonymous, unidentified Stuber."

"That's not the point, though," the blonde was having a hard time explaining what she really meant, short of acknowledging that she just missed Jinx, plain and simple. "Sometimes, I don't even want her here so I can bounce things off her, but so Norah can."

There was a suggestion of surprise carved in his two-letter response, "Oh?"

"I mean, they weren't _that_ close, I know…" he was still mussing up her honey locks, and it was like the pads of his fingers were urging her forward, her mouth getting ahead of her mind. "But, as far as this whole Mark thing goes, she doesn't have anyone to just vent to. You and I have to be gracious so we don't make Mark or Jill look bad. Robyn and Alice are practically wetting their pants with excitement, Max is mum and you couldn't pay him to give an opinion anyway…" she babbled when she got caught up. "That leaves Joanna, who I don't think is going to take pot shots at her own kid, and Brandi."

"Hmm…" Marshall hummed once she had finally buttoned up. "Well, in spite of that run-on, I think I do see where you're coming from. Right or wrong, Norah should be able to express what she's really thinking just like the rest of us do and not be judged for it, is that it?"

"More or less," Mary grumbled; she should've known he'd find a way to be more concise than she would.

"And, you think Jinx would be the poster child for that?"

This produced an indistinct noise in her throat, meant to communicate to her man that he was asking a foolish question, something he didn't do very often.

"Mom was never crazy about Mark. She tolerated him once Norah was born, but that's about as far as it went," she claimed. "If Norah wanted to spew all her brutal thoughts about him, she'd be the first person to listen."

"Don't you think she kind of does that anyway?"

"And not just about Mark."

"That's what I'm saying."

"Yeah…" she exhaled slowly. "But, the rest of us are always trying to talk her down. Jinx would just let her blow and go. She might even jump in with popcorn and go a round herself. No rationality allowed."

In some respects, Mary knew she wasn't giving her late mother enough acclaim. She had more than accepted Mark as one of the family and they'd always been polite to one another, never once getting into any sort of shouting match. But, Jinx could be ruthless when she wanted, and if came down to Mark's happiness or Norah's, there would've been no hesitation as to whose side she was on. Mary mourned that for her daughter, even if the child didn't yearn for it herself.

"Well, I suppose we'll never really know how Jinx would've reacted given the current state of affairs…" even though Marshall was always the realistic one, he came at Mary with something unexpected anyway. "But, it seems you aren't the only one who has Jinx on the brain as of late. Norah said something to me about her just yesterday."

This was definitely news, and Mary shook herself from her shelter, sitting up to face the chief, wondering as she did so why she felt troubled. There was nothing wrong with Norah mentioning her grandmother. In fact, it should've made her feel good. It meant she and her child weren't so far from the same wavelength after all.

"She did?" why she was asking him to repeat it was unclear, as there was no mystery to what he'd said. "How come?"

"I don't know for sure," a shrug. "She just said that you don't talk about her too much anymore. And that, when she died, that's when things started to shake up around here."

This caused Mary to take pause, and she even reached to the coffee table for the remote to turn off the television. The talking heads in the noisy box were becoming distracting, and this was something she wanted to give her full attention, although the room seemed oddly quiet without it. Only one lamp was on, plus the sink bulb in the kitchen, and so Marshall's stubbly face was washed in a kind of dull light. A half moon shadow fell across his features, which for a split second made him appear something between sinister and pristine.

"Is that what you think?" Mary found herself asking, though she hadn't planned to; it had slipped out.

"Well, kind of…" he retorted casually. "It's pretty hard to pinpoint an exact moment where life shifts, but I'd say Norah's hypothesis has some merit. The kids have all changed since Jinx died, even in small ways."

"And, why haven't I noticed?"

"I don't know that that's true," Marshall frowned. "And, in any case, it won't have been _just_ Jinx's passing that caused things to modify. Norah and Robyn have started middle school, Max has really developed, Alice made it out of kindergarten…"

"But, maybe I've overlooked that when it comes to Norah. Maybe she misses mom more than I realized…"

"Could be…"

"I just…I always thought it would be Robyn," if this was a defense, it was a poor one. "They were the ones who were joined at the hip."

"It _is_ Robyn," Marshall reminded her gently, clearly a little put-off that she was taking an innocent comment so seriously. "But, Robyn is better at expressing her feelings. Norah tends to close up a little bit."

Here, his eyebrows arched up, and Mary knew exactly what he was thinking even though he didn't say another word. He didn't have to. When you talked about people sealing themselves off, Mary was practically the team mascot. Nice to see she'd taught her daughter well.

"I'm really dumb sometimes…" the inspector grumbled, running her hand over her eyes and recognizing in the brief darkness how tired she was. "Really dumb…"

"No, you're not," her better half assured her, clapping her shoulder roughly. "You balance about five different things on a daily basis. Some things are bound to slip through the cracks," a rationalization. "But, there may be an easy solution here."

"What?"

"If _you_ open up about Jinx…" he proposed. "Maybe Norah will too."

"Marshall, we are not exactly simpatico these days."

He gave her his most boyishly impish look, "Won't know until you try."

This was a tough point to argue; one of the things Mary both loved and hated about her man was that he could halt a dialogue better than anyone she knew with some stock cliché. The problem was, he saved his formulaic words for when he knew they would count, meaning Mary would run out of room to quarrel.

But, fortunately for both of them, she was sleepy and still unsure how they had reverted Norah's issues into her uncertainties about Jinx. Like the seventh grader didn't have enough to be going on with. So, instead of readying herself for a boxing match, Mary leaned over and laid a light kiss on Marshall's cheek, in the spot exactly halfway between his bristly chin and one twinkling blue eye.

"What did I ever do without you running my life for me?" she proposed almost dreamily.

"Ah, no woman of mine needs a man to fix her wagon."

"I suppose that depends on your definition of 'wagon.'"

"That it does," he concurred, eyes bright and brows raised.

"On that note…" in no time, she was upright once more, leaving their smooch and cuddle behind. "I'm gonna go make sure Alice actually turned in once the lights went out, and then I'm getting ready for bed."

"Suit yourself…" Marshall said, wondering if this was a backhanded invitation. "I'll get the lights."

"Thanks…"

With an unnecessary but automatic wave over her shoulder, Mary left her husband in the rearview, meandering the twenty or so feet it took to get to her daughters' bedroom door. The hall was shadowy and she had to grope for the knob, careful not to jam her shoulder into the wood like she sometimes did when the hatch got stuck.

She was pleased to hear the cadenced breathing echoing though the almost pitch-black bedroom that meant Alice had perhaps already crashed. She'd had barely ten minutes since Marshall had put her down, but she was like a rock when she went under. The only luminance came from behind the dividing curtain, but it wasn't vivid enough to be emitted from a lamp or even a night light. It was a beaming, almost white shine, but was clearly being obscured by something. Tiptoeing past Alice, whom she didn't want to wake, Mary drew the drapes aside to reveal Norah's half of the room – and the source of the glimmers.

She was hunched over only underneath a sheet, blanket stripped to the edge of the mattress due to the unusual heat of the earlier day. She reminded Mary absurdly of a much younger child playing camp-out, for there was clearly a flashlight in one of her hands. Somehow, she didn't think that was what Norah was doing, but it brought her an odd kind of joy to think her teenager had erected a tent to huddle and engage in make-believe hide-and-seek under.

"I didn't know you were still up, Bug…" the mother whispered, walking over and pulling the sheet slightly to one side. The younger was propped up on one elbow, flashlight held high to illuminate the book in her other hand. "Don't stay up too much longer, okay?" it was a request, not a demand, something Norah hopefully couldn't find fault with.

"Okay…" an absentminded murmur, for she was immersed in her story.

Mary was about to leave it at that, but something stopped her. In the beam from the flashlight, she ascertained that Norah's pillow was damp. And, up close, there were haphazard streaks lining her cheeks. Like, from tears.

It would be extremely risky to invite confrontation when they'd very nearly made it to the weekend. But, the inspector couldn't let this go by completely.

"Everything all right?"

"Mmm hmm…" standard adolescent response.

"Are you sure?" she was pushing it, behaving far more like Marshall than herself, but she couldn't slow down. "Nothing you want to tell me before I turn in?"

"Nope."

"All right…"

She was surprised by how hard it was to give up without having seized even a tiny clue about why her daughter would be crying in the dark all by herself. Although, she could probably guess the reasons, but she'd convinced herself that after her chat with Marshall that she'd seemed improved, if only for a night. She hadn't really thought the evils had been vanquished, especially when there were so many of them, but she'd deluded herself into thinking they'd been stomped on at least until the next day.

Then, she remembered what her husband had said to her just minutes before. Maybe what Norah needed was unity – the ability to feel like she shared something with another being, even if it was minor. He had said that the basis of their discussion out on the curb had been the girl's inability to feel unique or in sync with someone else.

She might not be very good at it, but Mary had to leave her with more than a two word phrase.

"You know, I was thinking about something earlier…not a big deal; it's stupid, really…" she mentally cringed at how cavalier she sounded, even as she whispered.

Norah didn't look up, "What?"

"We were having those French fries with dinner…"

"Yeah?"

"And, did you know that I didn't used to let you eat French fries?"

"Hmm."

"When you were a baby," she was such a fake that it was humiliating, but for some reason she kept going, just glad it was dark so Norah wouldn't see her reddened face. "You had more than enough teeth and I still wouldn't let you have any."

"Uh-huh."

"It was Jinx who fed them to you."

For the first time, Norah didn't vocalize an inane grunt. She feigned that she was still reading, but Mary noticed her eyes quit moving across the pages. Vaguely, the mother wondered if Alice was secretly listening on the other side of the curtain.

"I got mad at her…" she prattled on. "But, she held her ground. I told her you couldn't eat people food."

This prompted a question, "And what did Jinx say?"

Determined not to overdo this, to leave well enough alone, to quit while she was ahead, Mary stepped to the head of the bed and dropped the most nonchalant of kisses on Norah's head.

"She said, 'Why not? She's a people.'"

For one, glorious moment, Mary thought she might've provoked a smile. It might not have been on her face, turned up on the corners like most grins, but it lingered behind her dark eyes, no longer oppressed, but hopeful. Comforted. The more memories she had, the more whole she appeared to be. Mary couldn't explain it, but she also wasn't complaining.

"She's right. You are a 'people,'" using her mother's corny verbiage. "To this day." And then, "Goodnight, Bug."

She had to tell her legs to walk, force them to stride through the barrier and past Alice on the other side. She was halfway into the hall before she heard the reply.

"Night, mom."

XXX

 **A/N: When in doubt, heart-to-hearts with Mary and Marshall usually work. ;)**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Raph arrives!**

XXX

"Ha! Got you again!"

"Don't get too cocky, my friend. I have ample time to catch up…"

"Read the scoreboard and weep, Marshall. Two to six. I'm smokin' you."

"You never know when I might make a comeback."

"It only goes to ten. You're history."

Listening to her daughter talk smack on her step-father gave Mary some margin of pleasure, ridiculous though it was. Marshall took his defeat humbly, like he took everything. He, like her, must've been too tickled watching Norah enjoy herself to be bothered that he was getting creamed in air hockey.

The restaurant was crowded on a Saturday that had quickly turned overcast, all the heat from the day before sapped out by a severe, chilling east wind. This, Mary figured, had driven many families indoors, not wanting to fool with coats and gloves when it had been warm enough to don shorts less than twenty-four hours earlier.

In truth, all the merriment and so many ankle-biters racing through the arcade made her slightly ill at ease. It was hard to hear her lunch companion, especially now that Marshall wasn't at the table to move conversation along. She felt like she was yelling just so Raph could understand her, but she had to find some way to make her words distinguishable over all the squeals, beeps, and flashing lights.

Turning from the match between Norah and Marshall, she grinned sheepishly at her ex and took another drink from her glass of Coke, which was mostly ice at this point. The remains of their burgers and fries were littered throughout the surface, the chocolate shake Norah had ordered mostly melted ice cream.

"You don't feel like a fish out of water, do you?" Mary asked Raph, knowing their exchanges so far had been somewhat one-sided. "Sorry about all the noise…"

"I am used to it," he promised with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "And, it has been good to catch up. Norah is lovely."

"She's luring you into a false sense of security," she quipped, chewing on her straw. "But, it's sweet of you to say. Not many people have used that word to describe her lately."

"Well, she seems like a very nice girl…" he commented, not about to shed his chivalry. "She looks just like you."

Mary had heard as much before, of course, but it had been awhile. Individuals who used to remark on Norah's resemblance to her mother or her witty nature now tended to focus on her independence, something that had always been there, but seemed more prominent these days. It was as though it was the politest thing they could come up with without saying she was rude. Mary had to hand it to her, though. She usually reformed in public.

"She does look like me," the woman reiterated, nothing better to say. "Which is good, I guess – that I have one kid that you can tell came from me. If you only glanced at me and Alice, you'd think she's adopted."

"Really?"

"Yeah…" she was twirling the straw now, mostly to avoid biting it in half. "She favors Marshall."

And, even though she was not the type of parent to gush or force her children's attractiveness on other people, she fished her phone out of her back pocket, immediately locating a recent photo of Alice. The only one she could find showed the little girl sitting atop the counter with a strip of bacon between her teeth, sporting spectacular bed head in her pajamas. Mary had taken it purely because the height of her daughter's hair after having slept on it wet had somehow caused the curls to expand; the sight had been too amusing to ignore.

"Not her most dazzling look, but it'll at least give you an idea…"

She passed the phone to Raph, who smiled appreciatively, "You're right. She has Marshall's eyes."

"And his coloring."

"She's beautiful."

Mary never knew what to say to this compliment, because she felt she had very little to do with how Alice looked. But, she knew what the appropriate response was, and she went ahead and gave it to Raph.

"Thank-you."

Unfortunately, this also effectively ended their chat, plunging them into another uncomfortable silence. It was funny, if not sad, Mary thought, that she could be so awkward around Raph. She didn't ever remembering feeling as such during the few times she'd seen him over the last thirteen years. But, those occasions had also been spontaneous and hadn't lasted long. Trying to bridge the gap in a more regimented manner didn't appear to be going well.

Maybe it was because she'd dragged him along due to Norah expressing her wishes to see him, and she was barely sparing him a second thought. She was too caught up in one-upping Marshall on every contraption in the arcade or, more accurately, in enjoying an afternoon free of drama. There had been no talk of weddings or babies or packing boxes since they'd arrived.

"What, um…what about your girls?" Mary forced herself to say, determined that she would make this trip at least somewhat worthwhile for the man. "You can't tell me you don't want to whip out your own phone and show them off."

Truthfully, she was curious to see them, though she'd never openly say so. Raph took the bait and grinned, scrolling on his own screen to come up with something suitable.

"This was Cece's first day of school – second grade," he previewed before flipping it around so Mary could have a look. "Nicole was really wanting to go too, so that is why she looks a little upset."

Indeed, the younger girl in the snapshot appeared to have recently had a minor fit. There was a tentative smile on her face, revealing tiny baby teeth, but the distress lingered behind her eyes. Still, there was no doubt that the young ladies were Raph's children. There was not a sliver of Victoria in their features – they were Ramirez, through and through.

Cecelia, the elder daughter, appeared tall for her age, especially if she'd just turned seven over the summer. Mary estimated she would outdistance Alice by at least half a head, if not more. She wore a blue checkered dress with a sash, a classic for the first day of school; her hair, exactly the color of the hazelnut spread Alice liked to put on her toast, was curled past her shoulders. There was a beaming, over-eager grin on her face so that her eyes scrunched up against her nose; even her teeth gleamed.

The smaller of the two, Nicole, was holding onto her big sister's hand, dressed in pink leggings and a summery top sporting rose-colored flowers. Her hair hadn't grown in yet, and was still baby-fine, falling in wisps all around her face. Nonetheless, she boasted the same olive complexion and deep chocolate eyes that could come from no one but Raph.

"They are disgustingly stunning…" Mary eventually uttered, refusing to gibber on and on about how her ex-fiancée had kids that could be in catalogues. "Seriously, did you primp them before you took this?"

"No…" he chuckled, knowing how Mary was and taking his cell back. "They are gorgeous girls. I am very lucky."

This made Mary feel unexpectedly guilty, as though she should've commented on how fortunate she was to have happy, healthy children. It was too late now.

"Well, maybe next time we get together, you can bring them," she offered up, wondering if Raph would think she meant it. "And, I can tow Alice."

"Where is she today?"

"Shopping for a Halloween costume with Brandi and my niece," she supplied dryly. "I shudder to think what the three of them might come home with."

"I am surprised Jinx didn't want to get in on that trip too."

He seemed to realize what he'd said a second too late, but he was far more stricken than Mary was. She wasn't susceptible to being drowned in sorrow just because of some accidental slip-up. It was much more likely that she would be struck by something smaller. Seeing Jinx's build in the way Robyn danced, for instance, or constantly having to remind herself at the store to buy wine, something she often hadn't kept in the house when her mother was still alive.

"I…I'm so sorry, Mary…"

"Don't be," she waved him away, knowing she would get testy if he fell all over himself to apologize. "So you forgot, so what? Even I forget sometimes," a shaky laugh. "Besides, you're right…" she didn't want to give him the chance to act contrite again. "If she were around, Jinx definitely would have something to say about Alice's outfit. She'd be begging her to be a ballerina, even if she'd already been one three years in a row."

"Does Alice dance?" he inquired, getting the message and veering off the subject.

"Yeah, but not ballet," Mary told him. "She likes the stuff where she gets to shake her ass a little more."

Before Raph could come up with a diplomatic response to that, there was a cheer from over in the corner and both turned to see Norah raising her arms in victory. It seemed she had trounced Marshall at last, for the air hockey machine was emitting green lights and lots of obnoxious squawks signaling success.

"Game, set, and match!" she declared, obviously savoring the chance to be a big shot, something she rarely experienced at home. "I told you I'd whoop you, Marshall."

"Mission accomplished," he bowed his head in tribute. "And, losing can make a man pretty famished. Can I top you off with another shake?"

"Sure."

"All right, well go have a seat; I'll grab you one."

"Thanks!"

It was the first time in awhile that Mary had heard Norah use such impeccable manners, albeit coming off a lot of trash talk, miniscule though it was. As Marshall departed for the counter in order to put in his word for another round of ice cream, Norah wove among the tables and plopped into her unoccupied chair at Mary's left, flushed and energized from her win. She'd pushed her shirt up to her elbows and her hair was fanned out around her face, like she'd just battled a real beast instead of her less-than-arcade-savvy step-dad.

"Sounds like you bested the geek," Mary observed while her daughter grabbed a few stray fries and stuffed them into her mouth. "What's that get you? Extra tokens?"

"Just bragging rights," Norah reported, slightly muffled due to her ravenous eating. "But, that's worth more than tokens."

"You are too competitive for your own good, Bug."

"Yeah and where do you suppose I got _that_?" she countered expertly.

Mary snatched the last of the fries before they were all gone, "Touché."

Here, Raph seemed to think that if he was going to be along for this ride that he might as well contribute something. It was no doubt his typically kind nature that urged him to make an effort, and Mary could appreciate that – even if what he voiced next was a bit of a fib, although a well-intentioned one.

"You know, Norah, I was just telling your mom while you were playing…" he cleared his throat, as if awkwardness was catching up with him. "You are a very pretty girl."

It was actually Alice he had said that about, but why split hairs? Norah, however, didn't even blush. She cast her eyes to the tabletop, seemingly concentrating on the lines in the wood. She crumpled a napkin and shoved it into her almost-empty shake glass.

"No, I'm not…" this befuddled Mary, because she didn't sound modest, but like she really thought Raph might not be being entirely truthful. "I look like a boy."

Now Raph clearly didn't know how to go on. Mary decided to help him out, although she, too, couldn't determine where this attitude came from. Norah certainly didn't dress in the most womanly way, and she'd never spent much time on her hair, but that pretty much took care of itself. It was stick straight and as long as she brushed it, it didn't look particularly disheveled. And, even so, that didn't make her appear anything close to masculine.

It was probably best to start with something light. Nobody would benefit if Mary went out of her way to convince Norah she was some raving beauty.

"And what boy do you know with hair as long as yours?" she tousled the locks, which swung just below her shoulders. "That pimply kid that works at Burger King, true, but you've got miles on him, Bug."

"I still don't look like a girl," she insisted, although she still sounded relaxed. "And, especially not a pretty one."

"All in the eye of the beholder…" Raph chimed in unexpectedly. "I am sure the young men at school think you are interesting enough."

At this, Norah couldn't conceal a snort. At least she was laughing and not arguing.

"It's Robyn they like, not me, Raph," she asserted baldly. "Besides, I don't even care if they like me. All they do is make out and I don't want to kiss any of them. They're so immature; it's unbelievable."

Part of Mary was relieved to hear this, not entirely because she didn't like the idea of Norah wrapped around some jock or math nerd either. Mostly, it was due to the fact that her resistance to the notion made her sound like her old self – no patience for those who couldn't grow up and get on with it.

"Pretty sure you could skunk most of those little boys on the baseball diamond anyway, isn't that right?" the mother threw out there, hoping to steer things in another direction. "What'd you bat last season, anyway?"

"It was softball, and I don't remember," but, Mary was gratified to see her cheeks turn pink with pleasure.

"Do you still play second base?" Raph wanted to know.

"Most of the time," she replied, licking salt from the ends of her fingers. "They put me at shortstop sometimes, which isn't that different."

"That's what I played," he reminded her. "But, I have gotten well-acquainted with third base these days – coaching the guys home."

"The Isotopes had a good record this year."

"Well, better than last year," Raph gave a huffy sigh. "But, we traded up in a few places and managed to field something decent."

"Do you miss playing?"

Mary was glad this had started to pick up the pace. Raph seemed more himself and Norah was really digging in, slipping her new drink out from Marshall's hand when he rejoined them. The inspector noticed he'd gotten one for himself as well, but vanilla flavored. He handed Mary a straw, indicating they could share it. It was a little too 'Lady in the Tramp' for her, but it looked delicious, and she decided to take the risk, hoping no one she knew saw her engaging in a split milkshake with her husband.

While she slurped, she listened to Raph's response about the game he loved.

"Sometimes, I do…" he granted her that. "But, I am teaching my girls to play, and that is almost as good."

This caused Norah to turn in her seat to face her mother, "You've seen him play, right, mom?"

"Not enough…" between sips. "But, yeah, here and there."

"Is that how you became friends? Because you both like baseball?"

The looks the three adults exchanged were so pitifully obvious that it was hard to believe two of them were distinguished US Marshals and should've been much better at being covert. Marshall was quickest at averting his eyes; lifting the straw out of his milkshake and putting it back in. Raph gave a random cough. Mary's mind kicked into fast-forward so speedily it was a wonder Norah couldn't see the whirls spinning in her head.

With a jolt of her heart, Mary realized that she'd never actually educated her child on how she and Raph knew each other – and just how well they did. It hadn't seemed important, years ago when she was much younger, to bother her with what the older blonde now considered insignificant details. But, now that she'd been asked outright, it was going to be hard to lie. Previously, Norah had been fed a story that the baseball player and her mother were buddies that had eventually gone their separate ways. That wasn't going to fly now.

"Uh, well…" it was vital that she not sound like she had anything to be ashamed of; everyone had their skeletons. "That was one of the reasons we got along, yeah…"

Norah seemed to sense something was off. She scanned the faces before her, eyes darting left-to-right like she personally was going to catch one of them in a fib.

"But, we weren't exactly friends…" There was a perplexed look on her daughter's face for a single moment before Mary dove right in, no sense beating around the bush. "We were a couple," upfront, no waffling. "We dated. For…two years?" she glanced at Raph for corroboration, but he said nothing. "…I guess it was more like three…"

"A testament to the strength of their relationship that there were no hard feelings at the end," Marshall blurted out, clearly unable to help himself. "Not everyone in a romantic entanglement is so privileged."

Norah acted like she hadn't heard him, and although she appeared surprised by this sudden bit of information, she wasn't melting down.

Yet. Especially since Mary hadn't assaulted her with the whole truth.

"And…" Mary did not know what was inspiring her to chatter on like this, particularly since she hadn't given Norah a chance to accent an opinion. "We were also…" Suddenly, her voice got tangled up in her throat, and she felt incredibly reckless for having thrust everything into the open like this, but she couldn't stop now. "…We were also engaged. For a short time. About eight months. And, then we broke up."

The air was so thick with tension; Mary was shocked that she could still breathe. Raph looked like he wanted to jump up and run away without so much as a goodbye. Marshall, traditionally a master in these situations, was folding and re-folding his napkin, eyes fixated on his step-daughter as though he were waiting to shield himself from the potential fit.

Mary felt like a complete moron. A tacky hamburger joint was no place to have this conversation. It was loud and messy and they were surrounded by stifling merriment, children flying past their table, adults chasing after them. It was as if she had sucked them all into some alternate universe where the racket became muted, where the only people in the room were the four of them. So much for a nice afternoon out.

Before she hounded Norah like a dog with a bone, Mary tried to consider how this might look from a thirteen-year-old's point-of-view. To find out your mother had nearly made the decision to spend her life with some man you barely knew was a bit of a dizzying blow. It might be hard for her to look at her the same way after this – like she'd been withholding some illicit part of her past, though it hadn't really been on purpose. It was one thing to have an old boyfriend. An old fiancée was another matter all together.

Especially when he was sitting right there looking like he would pay as much money as it took to get him out of the room as fast as possible.

Norah eventually found her voice over the din. She didn't seem to notice that her second milkshake was starting to sweat right into her palm.

"You…you were going to get married?"

Mary forced herself to act like this was not life-changing, "Yes."

"Why?"

Her face was unreadable, and the inspector briefly wondered how come she had asked why they'd been together in the first place, not why they'd split up.

"Well…" there wasn't a succinct way to put this, and Mary wasn't known for being poetic. "We loved each other. Sort of…" she added less than tactfully. "But, you know…things change. People change. We decided it wasn't going to work. That was that."

"Your mother is wonderful," Raph piped up out of nowhere, leaning toward Norah as if he had to convince her of something. "I cared for her very much. I still do."

"Did _you_ break up with _her_?"

This question made color rise in Mary's cheeks, and she was about to discourage Raph from answering, but she wasn't fast enough.

"Yes, I did," honest as ever.

"What for?"

There was definitely an accusatory note there, and Raph might be a gentleman, but Mary wasn't going to put him through this. If Norah was going to be mad at someone, she could be mad at her own flesh and blood.

"Bug, enough – this doesn't matter," she tried to shut things down as best she could, hoping Norah would take the hint. "It was a thousand years ago. I don't hate Raph, he doesn't hate me; neither one of us would change what happened. He's married, I'm married…"

" _Everybody's_ married," Norah groused, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling as she slumped down in her seat. "It's more popular than those stupid headbands with the bows that Robyn is always wearing. By next year, eighth graders will be eloping."

No one seemed to know how to deflect her suddenly bitter outlook. Mary was begging to apologize to Raph for letting things go south and pleading in equal measure that Norah would buck up and be quiet. She wanted to be understanding; she just didn't want to do it here.

Unfortunately, her singular dialogue only went from bad to worse as she fueled the fire and turned to Marshall.

"What about you?" she jutted her chin outward. "Do you have any secret girlfriends you almost married?"

Uh-oh.

"Well…"

Norah had evidently expected him to say no – he was solid, dependable Marshall, and he wouldn't have ever had a fiancée stashed in his sordid history. Wrong again.

"Believe it or not, champ…"

"You're _not_ serious," but, she didn't even sit up; she didn't fight; she just looked revolted and disillusioned by the whole ordeal. " _You_? Who was yours?"

"Her name was Abigail," Marshall sighed dispiritedly. "She was a detective. We dated for a year, but we were only engaged for a few months."

At this, a look of dawning comprehension passed over the younger blonde's face, puzzle pieces sliding into place. Raph now looked so uncomfortable that Mary thought he might crawl under the table and hide.

"She was at Jinx's funeral," the seventh grader exclaimed, but without volume. "She had that fake southern accent."

The customary Marshall would've corrected her, would've said it wasn't fake, but he must've known it wasn't worth the effort.

"Yes, that was her."

"You don't see her anymore?" a rebuttal.

"No. Not really."

It was jarring to see Marshall so shifty and fidgety, although he held his own fairly well. Mary thought he must be telling himself that the truth would set him free.

"Why not?" Norah demanded.

"We, uh…didn't end on the best terms."

"Did she dump you?"

Marshall cleared his throat, downing a few more swallows of the vanilla milkshake, or what was left of it.

"No," he finally concluded.

Norah knew what this meant, " _You_ dumped _her_?"

"I prefer to think of it as mutual. But, more or less, yes. I was the one who ended it." Mary wanted to slap him for what came next, but for once she wasn't able to read his mind with their trademark ESP. "You were with me when we severed ties, actually."

Now Norah looked horrified, " _Me_?" she gasped, scooting to the edge of her chair. "Why? Why don't I remember if I was…?"

"You were a baby," Marshall elucidated, his knuckles now gripping the edge of the table. "Not a year old yet. I was watching you for mom."

This time, Norah did not ask for further information, but gazed at the man as though she had never seen him before in her life. Mary could not believe they had descended to the depths of their muddled past, when ten minutes earlier they'd been chatting back and forth about baseball. She supposed it was a good thing Marshall had not elaborated on the details of that fateful July day; it would ruin what he'd told her the day before about that time being such a happy one for them – Robyn's birth, Norah's learning to walk, and the like. It was better she not know it was tainted with other mishaps, even if she'd known for years that Mary and Marshall hadn't become a couple until just before her first birthday.

Though there was no altering the days of yore, Mary still couldn't remember a time she'd felt more embarrassed. The back of her neck was hot and the stubble on Marshall's cheeks seemed unusually dark over his pale skin. Neither one had thought their previous endeavors were so scandalous until viewed from the perspective of a judgmental teenager.

Norah's dark eyes seemed to be boring into Mary and she fought not to look away, to allow herself to be x-rayed. Marshall, ever the peacemaker, did what he could to sunny things up, futile though the attempt promised to be.

"I am confident you won't have quite so many demons when you're grown, beautiful."

Not only was there no way for him to know this, he was already wrong, and Norah proved it with a well-timed mumble.

"I have more _now_ than all of you put together."

XXX

 **A/N: Nothing is ever easy. ;)**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Onward we go! I'm flattered if anyone is still enjoying this.**

XXX

Mary should've guessed that learning about her semi-sordid past would peeve Norah, but she wasn't prepared for the disgust. It was like every noble thing she'd ever thought about her mother, which couldn't have been a long list to start with, was now erased. If she thought an ex-fiancée was bad, Mary had to wonder how she would react to the abduction or Brandi's unlawful affairs with Chuck and his cronies. Luckily, that was poised never to come up. The inspector was glad she had WITSEC to hide behind where that was concerned.

Unfortunately, however, Norah didn't seem to have gotten over her surprise even after they bid Raph goodbye and went home. The people waiting at the house weren't poised to improve her disposition, either.

Brandi, Robyn, and Alice appeared to have returned from their shopping trip, but they weren't the only ones in the Mann-Shannon abode when Marshall turned his key in the lock. They had only the warning of the car in the drive before stepping in, and the vehicle promised that Mark was waiting as well. The afternoon seemed to be plummeting further and further downhill by the second.

Brandi was chatting up Mark on the couch, Robyn and Alice sitting cross-legged on the carpet with an old, dusty box between them. Mary decided to wait before inquiring about what they were doing, because her sister had looked up at the sound of the door opening, clearly expecting greetings.

"Hi…" she waved over her shoulder. "I let Mark in; I hope that's okay."

If it hadn't been, it was too late now. The antsy half-smile Mary received from her former flame had to mean he hadn't arrived bearing good news. What more could there possibly be? Norah now knew about the marriage, the baby, and even the move, which had worked itself in somewhere between wedding dates and due dates.

This had to mean that the man was preparing for an ambush of some kind. Norah hadn't gone to his house all week and, per their custody agreement, she was supposed to be with him Wednesday through Saturday. Mark and Mary always finagled the dates if they needed to, especially with Norah growing older, but perhaps he felt he'd kept his distance long enough. Mary had the strong suspicion that 'kicking and screaming' would be an accurate way to describe Norah's response to going to her father's place of residence.

"Hey, Mare…" he waved too, even though they were mere feet from one another. And then, likely trying to be magnanimous, "Hi, Norah."

He received the silent treatment and his daughter plunked herself down in one of the open chairs and folded her arms over her chest. Her eyes strayed in an opposite direction, as though she were forcing herself to look away from anyone who might ask probing questions.

There was no deterring Brandi, however. Ever the cheerful one, she tried to put a positive spin on things before they could go south too quickly.

"How's Raph?" she directed her inquiry at Norah, perhaps to get her to open up.

"Fine," the girl replied shortly.

"How was lunch?"

"Fine." Unexpectedly, she reciprocated, "How was _yours_?"

There was something funny about the way she placed emphasis on 'yours.' Mary sensed they were heading into murky waters, but if Brandi noticed the inflection, she didn't show it.

"It was nice…"

And then, before she could go on, "Did you meet with _your_ ex-husband?"

Mary bit her lip so she wouldn't sigh audibly; she was so fierce in clamping down she almost broke the skin. Marshall, too, managed to keep silent, but he wended his way into the kitchen and out of the fray, which his wife felt was unusually cowardly of him. After all, her mother wasn't the only one Norah had implicated.

A perplexed, lost look scuttled across Brandi's perpetually innocent features. Fortunately, she played it cool. Or, as cool as Brandi ever played anything.

"I…didn't know I had an ex-husband…" she uttered slowly. "Do I?" a giggle.

Whatever Norah was going to pull next, Mary couldn't begin to imagine, but she could bet that giggling would not be involved.

Slouched down so far in her chair that she looked in danger of falling to the floor, she spoke more to Brandi's feet than to her face.

"Congratulations. You're the only one in the room who doesn't."

This, of course, was incorrect, but all involved knew it was immaterial. Mark, of course, did not possess an ex-husband, but an ex-wife. While Mary might've been married before, it wasn't to Raph, whom she well knew Norah was referring to. She was just twisting the knife by including Marshall, who had never made it to the aisle with Abigail.

In some ways, it was cruelly ironic that it was Brandi, of all people in the group, that had never been divorced or close to it, unless you counted her original runaway-bride routine with Peter.

In reflecting over all this, Mary couldn't stop herself from correcting her daughter. She so rarely got to be right when it came to their brawls these days, and apparently she was itching to feel superior.

"Norah, Raph is not my ex-husband," she was sharper than she had originally planned, which wouldn't help, but at least it clued Brandi in. "You were there when I explained what happened. Don't play dumb."

"He's an ex- _something_ ," she protested dully.

"Oh, well, I have a lot of ex- _somethings_ ," Brandi gave another flighty chuckle, perhaps thinking she could ease some of the strain. "Hell, even Peter was an ex-something, although not for very long…"

"So, I guess it runs in the family," Norah's sarcasm was bone-chilling; Mary knew she hated it because it was so similar to her own, and though she resisted change like criminals and handcuffs, she had never meant to pass her derision onto her child. "Nobody around here can do anything the normal way. You've gotta elope or get annulled or divorced or give each other rings that don't mean anything or leave your husband at the altar."

This accusation, such as it was, was so extravagant, that it left Mary speechless, at least for a moment. The kid was on a roll.

Brandi, however, couldn't leave well enough alone and gave her niece a nudge, "Did I miss something?"

"Didn't _you_ know mom was supposed to marry that Raph guy?"

So, now he was 'that Raph guy.' Great.

"Sure I did, honey…" Brandi's tone was sugary, like Jinx's used to be. "But, I guess…you didn't…" her voice trailed as she put the pieces together – a day late and a dollar short.

"No, because nobody ever tells me anything!" the elder Shannon hoped her sister wouldn't be stupid enough to reveal that she, too, had-had a minor rendezvous with Raph. "I mean, if mom had married Raph, then I wouldn't even be here. But, I guess Alice wouldn't either, so maybe it wouldn't have been a total loss…"

"Norah!" Mary snapped, through letting her run her mouth to let off steam, just glad her younger daughter seemed too occupied to have heard the insult. "Quit being such a smart ass!" it was indelicate, but her patience was on thin ice. "We all have skeletons in our closet. You won't escape life without a few of your own; I trust you know that."

"I'm not going to be moronic enough to almost marry someone I don't love."

"So, you're not going to make any mistakes?" Mary rebutted, not endeared to duking it out with guests in the house, but unable to keep quiet. "Well, aren't you the lucky one…"

"Not _that_ lucky, since dad is doing the same thing you did."

At this, the older blonde narrowed her eyebrows, wondering just where her teenager got the gall to turn everything into a melodrama. Mark and Raph had nothing to do with one another, other than their connections to Mary, but leave it to Norah to connect the dots just to prove a point. If she was going to condemn everyone, she might as well go all the way.

And, evidently, Mark couldn't miss the sound of his own name, because he leaned forward on the sofa and peered around Brandi to address his daughter directly.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Norah didn't even flinch, "Mom didn't love Raph. It's not like you love Jill either."

She said it so casually, like it was obvious, and Mary half-expected Mark to shrug it off, but instead, he bristled as though she'd struck him. He and his own ex might've been at odds lately, but there was one thing they'd agreed upon – Norah's mouth was getting out of hand.

"How would you know how I feel, Norah?"

"I just do."

"Is it that you _think_ I don't love Jill, or that you're _hoping_ I don't?"

"You figure it out."

"Well, I don't think I'm going to waste the time," and, to Mary's surprise, the man stood up, a gesture that showed he was finished arguing. "I want you to go to your room and pack your backpack. You're coming to my place tonight. I'll bring you back Monday afternoon."

The fact that she hadn't entirely been consulted on this plan barely skimmed Mary's mind. Her initial thought was that Mark almost never spoke in such an authoritarian, no-nonsense way. Granted, his voice warbled a little as he got his command out, but he was holding firm, looking his daughter straight in her blazing brown eyes. He must've decided it was time to put up or shut up.

Still, though. Between Mark and Marshall, Mary had always been the bad cop. She would've liked some warning that their roles were going to change overnight. Something told her Norah would feel the same way.

By the way she wrinkled her nose and scoffed in her father's face said she wasn't going to be demanded of so easily.

"I'm not going anywhere with _you_."

The hard inflection on 'you' made Mary wonder if there was anyone Norah would be game to leave the house with. It must've made Marshall ponder as well, because he returned from his hiding post in the kitchen. The female inspector snuck a quick glance at Robyn and Alice. They had dragged the ancient cardboard box halfway down the hall and weren't paying any attention to the squabble brewing.

And, when Mark realized Norah was serious and that she wasn't moving without a fight, he kicked it up a notch.

"Norah, I am not some friend at your locker that took your math textbook, okay? I'm your father…" Mary inwardly cringed at the formal declaration, as it sounded like it had come right out of a movie. "I'm tired of you talking to me like this. If I tell you to do something, you do it – and that goes for Jill too."

Not a flicker of emotion betrayed Norah's stony features, just two words.

"Forget it."

Mary thought Mark might possibly blow a vessel. His face reddened so severely he looked like he had a bad sunburn. Brandi shot her sister an offhand look, like she knew it would be better if she left, but didn't know how to do so gracefully. Mary instinctively reached for Marshall's hand and he took it at once, the pair of them examining the showdown like spectators at a play.

"Get in your room and get ready – now!"

Brandi jumped at the harshness in the man's tone, much as Max had done the day before when Norah had shot off like a rocket. Like mother, like son.

"I am not going with you!" Norah finally leapt out of her chair and stood as nose-to-nose with him as she could. "Not now – not ever!"

"Yes, you are!"

"No, I'm not!"

"You are! The custody agreement…"

"I don't care about the stupid custody agreement!" she bellowed. "I'm not a little kid anymore! You can't make me go anywhere! I'm not sleeping in the room down the hall while you and Jill stay up all night talking about your _new_ home with your _new_ baby!"

"You will have a room in our new house, much bigger than the one you have now…" maybe he thought promising her such a thing would mitigate her, but not even close.

"What part of this are you not getting?" she squinted at him, as if trying to make sure it was really Mark in front of her. "I'm not going – I don't even _want_ a room in your dumb house!"

"Well, you're getting one whether you like it or not, so get your things and we can talk about…"

"I'm not talking to you and I'm sure as hell not talking to Jill! I'm living here now – all the time!"

"You are not!" but, as he said it, he tossed an anxious glance at Mary and Marshall, as though afraid they had already agreed to such a thing. "You are my daughter, Jill is going to be your step-mother, and…"

"She is not my step- _anything_!" Norah spat, looking horrified by the very idea. "And she is definitely not my mother!"

Though she tried to tamp it down, Mary couldn't help the tiny surge of pride that coursed in her veins at the note of loyalty in her daughter's voice. Apparently, almost-ex-husbands didn't abolish quite everything.

Mark tried to backtrack, but the insinuation of anger still pounding through his words probably clouded whatever understanding he wanted to project.

"I didn't say she was your mother. But, that doesn't mean you're allowed to be rude and disrespectful…"

"Except _you're_ allowed to do whatever you want!" turning the tables right back on him. "Move away and keep _secrets_ …" she threw a scathing look in Mary's and Marshall's direction, showing they weren't forgiven. "But, everyone gets to tell me what to do and how to do it and if I don't then I get in trouble. I have to do what everyone says, but no one ever asks me what I want! Alice gets whatever the hell she asks for and she's a brat…"

"Don't call me a brat!"

Plainly, the decibel they'd reached could not be ignored. Alice stood at the head of the hallway, hands on her hips and looking sullen. Robyn was crouched behind her, trying to disregard everything going on around her to concentrate on the task at hand, whatever it was. This behavior reminded Mary of Max.

Norah was not the least bit remorseful, "Then keep your nose out of this!"

"If you'd shut up, then maybe I could!"

For once, the mother thought Alice had a point.

" _You're_ the one who should shut up – babbling on about your idiot dances and your baby books and your silly costume like anybody gives a crap…"

"Norah."

The name came in two slow, methodical syllables, and though the moniker had been used to chastise many times that day already, there was something different about it. It was several seconds before Mary realized that it had come from beside her, but Marshall had stepped away before she could register any further.

His voice was eerie, a timbre the likes of which she had never heard from her husband. His normally bright, jaunty tone had altered to cold and dark, like he wanted to cut through his step-daughter like ice. And, though he hadn't shouted and carried on the way Mark had, Mary knew without question that he was livid. He made it his job not to discipline Norah unless he had to, and this was the second time in a few days. If even Marshall was getting fed up, you knew things were slipping by the second.

Norah, too, seemed momentarily frightened out of her tirade; unsure who had gotten her to put a halt to her cursing. However, once Marshall was two feet in front of her, there could be no mistaking the source. Mary could see only half his face, but she recognized that his eyes were set in a rigid, steely grey. Their usual softness was gone.

The hush that fell over the room was profound, but he was the one to break it – speaking in the same calm, but unwaveringly serious way. There was an implicit message there that said if the girl tried to wrangle with him, it wouldn't end well.

"Mark is taking you for the next two nights. It is his right to ask that of you," it was so proper, so direct. "You can get your bag packed, or one of us can pack one for you. This isn't a bargain. You are going with your dad. End of story."

Mary thought sure everyone could hear every breath she took, waiting on tenterhooks for what would happen next. Marshall had really gone out on a limb, opening himself up to all kinds of repugnance from a teenager who had previously worshipped the ground he walked on – the only one she would open up to. His partner couldn't help feeling grateful, impressed, and also in debt to his actions.

Norah pursed her lips, and Mary couldn't decide if she was going to scream in his face or start crying. But, before she could do anything, Marshall concluded his little speech with yet another order that could not be overlooked.

"I would like you to apologize to your sister."

That did it. Norah turned away from him and all-but stomped in the direction of her bedroom, although Mary had the strong suspicion she was going to throw a few outfits together, not to mention her toothbrush and pajamas. There was something in Marshall's language that said he had won.

Although, not completely. The thirteen-year-old took care to bang into Alice on her way, which earned her a wounded, "Hey!" in return.

It was Mary's turn to be firm, "Norah! I mean it!"

She sounded barking in the otherwise silent room, but she was going to back up her husband's wishes. A disgruntled, not entirely sincere, "Sorry, Alice" leaked into the atmosphere and then she was gone, nearly stepping on Robyn on the way. The slam of her door caused most of them to recoil, but Brandi sprung from her spot in the cushions and strode over to Mary, as though Norah's unexpected antics were any of her business.

"What happened?" she asked at once. "I thought she wanted to see Raph, and now…"

"She did," Mary replied shortly. "Until she found out we almost got hitched back in the day. Then it was out with him and onto judgmental. Somehow Abigail got dragged into things…"

"Abigail?" Brandi flashed wide eyes at her brother-in-law. "Jesus, I haven't thought about her in ages…"

"Makes two of us," Marshall mumbled.

"Who's Abigail?" said a small voice from below the quad; they looked down to find Alice blinking into their midst, proving they'd been remiss to discuss old blunders in her company. "Was she at lunch too?"

Mary's instinct was to balk, because if Norah's reaction was any indication, the younger sister wasn't going to be thrilled with finding out her father had once been poised to marry another woman. Just thinking so much about engagements and hand-holding and honeymoons was enough to give Mary hives. She wasn't a fan of gaiety anyway, but more than that, nuptials put her in mind of the summer before Alice had born when she'd so adamantly refused to marry her own true love.

It had been one of the darker times in she and Marshall's relationship, and she didn't like thinking about it. She shuddered to think what would've become of her existence had she not finally agreed to tie the knot.

But, Alice's question was perfectly understandable, and she was clearly waiting for an answer. There was something about the pure blueness of her eyes in this moment that made Mary's heart wrench. She was used to her daughter being able to hold her ground when it came to Norah's offenses, but this time she actually looked weary – like her feelings had been hurt. It shamed her mother that she sometimes didn't think of Alice as having feelings.

"No, she wasn't at lunch…" Marshall was the one to speak up, since it was his history that was being laid on the table. "Abigail was a girlfriend I had a long time ago that I thought about marrying – it was before I was married to mommy, and it was long before you came along," nodding at the child with an incline of his head. "I liked Abigail very much, but it wouldn't have been right to marry her. I didn't love her."

Contrary to Raph, whom Mary had adored in her own twisted way, Marshall maintained a mantra that whatever he had ever felt for Abigail was superficial. His current wife could never decide if he was lying about this, or if he said it to merely spare her unnecessary anguish. This far in the future, she couldn't imagine she'd lose sleep over it, but Marshall was too much of a gentleman to change his line now.

Alice looked a little confused at the explanation, but her response was only to inquire further, not to point fingers.

"Why is Norah mad about it?"

Why did Norah get mad about most things? It was the great mystery of their lives.

"I don't really know for sure, sugar…" Marshall shrugged sheepishly. "Maybe because she feels like I was lying to her, or that mom was lying when she let her think Raph was just an old friend…"

Alice didn't touch on the subject of the baseball player, which was unsurprising. Her vibe with Marshall had always been so much stronger than her vibe with Mary; she could easily brush off the information that her mother had-had another bedmate.

"But, you weren't lying, were you, daddy?"

If anything was going to rock the brunette's world the way Norah's had been so severely tilted lately, it was learning her daddy was anything less than perfect. The hopeful way she fluttered her eyelashes up into his face said she was just begging to be reassured. Marshall was nothing but dignified and righteous and honest to a fault.

"I wasn't trying to," was his fair reply. "It just wasn't something that ever came up."

"Does Norah think you don't love mommy anymore?"

"I doubt it," he shook his head. "She's just…older than you, Big Al…" he chalked it up to that with a tired sigh. "She takes things harder. I wish I had a better way to explain it."

How could he detail to her when he didn't understand it himself?

"Anyway…" it was apparent he wanted to be done with this, as did everyone else in the room. "Why don't you come show me what you're doing with Robyn? I would love to see what you've dug out."

Alice was agreeable to anything that included this man's attention, and she seized his hand at once, moody big sister temporarily forgotten.

This left Mark, Mary, and Brandi to shuffle around, hands in their pockets, although Mary did a little more than that. Paying the shorter blonde no mind, she turned to Mark, attempting to keep a lid on her vexation, but likely failing miserably.

"You're kind of playing it fast and loose with this whole, 'you're coming with me or else' business…" she informed him with critical eyes. "Where the hell did the Rambo routine come from?"

"Come on, it was not that bad," Mark insisted. "At least not at first," an amendment. "It's not my fault you brought her home all bent out of shape."

"Like she wouldn't have _gotten_ bent out of shape hearing you're planning to haul her away by her ear?"

"What am I supposed to do, Mary?" his voice inched into a whine, making him look and sound like a petulant little boy. "She's ticked off at me and hasn't stopped being ticked off at me in weeks. How am I supposed to get her to talk to me if she's over here all the time?"

"On what planet do you think she's interested in talking?"

"She talks to you!" he assumed, but Mary had to turn him down there.

"She does not," she rebuffed with a deliberate shake of her head. "And this whole 'family of three' thing has her more clammed up than ever."

"I never implied she was not in my family," the man jabbed a finger in her face, which she shoved out of the way. "I didn't," he went on, somehow taking her gesture as disagreement. "In fact, I've been doing everything I can to include her, but she doesn't want any part of it."

"Well, after today she doesn't want any part of me or Marshall either."

"But, she still wants to stay with you."

"Only because we're the lesser of two evils," she said dismally without thinking. When Mark's whole expression drooped, knowing he was that 'lesser' she had spoken of, she hastened into regret. "Sorry, I mean…" she always tripped over herself with apologies, and now was no exception. "…But…come on…" now her act of contrition was transitioning quickly into a defense. "…I mean…you know how she is about Jill…"

"No, I _don't_ know how she is about Jill," he chattered hurriedly, as though working as fast as possible to change any previous notions Mary might've had. "She used to like her, they got along just fine, and now…"

" _Now_ …"

Mary did not mean to sound so haughty, so all-knowing, but Mark had to be smart enough to recognize that the situation was no longer the same. And, if he didn't, she was going to enlighten him in one fell swoop.

"She's not just some hip young teacher hanging out on the weekends. She's going to be your wife – she's giving Norah another sibling."

Mary strongly suspected Mark was going to utter an, "And?" but he refrained. She answered as if he had.

"That's a world of difference."

XXX


	19. Chapter 19

XXX

That night, the house felt oddly empty to Mary. She couldn't tally up why, because even when Norah was at home, she didn't cause a disturbance unless she got into it with someone – usually Alice, if it was evening. And yet, she was bizarrely aware of her older daughter's absence, like when she got dressed in the mornings and forgot to put on socks. It always took her far too long to register what was missing, and only when her feet grew cold did she remember. On this Saturday sundown, she kept forgetting what was troubling her, only to see the girls' open bedroom door and remember all over again.

She should not feel as though she lost something. On regular weeks, Norah was with Mark at least for three nights; it was their normal. But, their week had manifested itself as anything _but_ normal, and so maybe that was why she couldn't shake the feeling that something had been misplaced as she ambled about the uncommonly silent quarters.

The mother was the one to put Alice to bed, who was not exhibiting her usual brazen symptoms either. Once Robyn and Brandi had gone home to Peter and Max, she'd poked at her dinner and spent most of the night in front of the television. Norah had said much worse to her in all their years as sisters, but Mary had the feeling she was particularly stung for whatever reason. She considered asking her about it as she secured her beneath her covers, but decided against it. There was no sense bringing that dirty laundry out to air again.

When Mary entered her own bedroom, lights out in the living room over her shoulder, it was to find Marshall sprawled on the mattress width-wise, his long legs dangling over the edge. He kicked his socked feet just like a little boy wanting to release his energy, flopped on his belly, reading one of his favorite mystery novels.

He didn't look up when his wife joined him, but she walked over and scratched his hair roughly with her long nails, squinting at the tiny print that his eyes were scanning.

"Gripping tale?"

Why was she making small talk? She hated small talk.

"As ever," was Marshall's frank comeback. "You'd like it. Guns, blood, yellow caution tape. Only the grisliest for my girl."

He was kidding, and it was then that he looked up. The tired smile he offered made Mary's heart flurry, almost like she was the teenager waiting for the cute freshman to pass her in the hall. It was nice to know that some things didn't get old, and Marshall's reverence was a big one.

"You trying to tell me something?" she played along, her grin as fatigued as his was. "I'm not sure it's a good thing that you automatically think of me when you're reading about where the bodies are buried."

"You know I mean it in the loveliest way possible," he reached up and chucked her under the chin, a move she decided to let him get away with, although she wasn't sure why she was feeling tolerant. "Is Alice in bed?" he segued on.

"Yeah…" Mary turned away from him and headed for the dresser, pulling open the bottom drawer and sifting through it for a clean pair of pajama pants. "Did she tell you that she and Brandi and Robyn still didn't find a costume?"

"She mentioned it in passing…" Marshall marked his place in his book and tossed it onto his pillow, sitting up to watch Mary while she undressed. "My sugar has very high standards when it comes to Halloween attire."

"Probably too high," the woman couldn't resist pointing out. "At this rate, she'll be going as a very pouty first grader."

"I have faith in her decision-making skills," he alleged off-handedly. "When it gets down to the wire, she'll stake her claim into something – be it a princess or a gypsy or even just a regular old bumblebee like big sis was back in the day."

It wasn't easy not to stiffen at the backhanded remark about Norah. Mary continued stepping into her plaid pants, throwing her shirt off and trading it for a light one with buttons, but she made it a point not to look directly at Marshall. She didn't want to think about what Norah was doing at her father's, what sort of havoc she was wreaking, nor did she wish to dwell on what had gone on earlier in the day. It seemed they couldn't chug through twenty-four hours without some kind of blow-out. It was depressing and made her want to crawl into bed with nary a word about her explosive thirteen year old.

Unfortunately, Marshall was too intuitive not to notice that his partner was moving more lethargically and also that she wouldn't meet his eyes. And, being the man he was, he didn't let this slide without at least pointing it out.

"I didn't know little flying bugs could cause such stress," he teased, which was brave of him, since it was obvious Mary was not in a teasing mood.

She shot him a mildly exasperated look, "Not funny."

"Yeah, I know," he didn't play for long. "But, trying to diffuse discomfiture never hurt anyone."

"Discomfiture," Mary repeated quietly, wondering if anyone but Marshall would take an ordinary word and fancy it up the way he just had. "There's a lot of that going around."

"Today at the restaurant, for starters."

If she was going to be made to talk about this, she refused to pin down that particular topic. What had occurred in their own home was safer. Drudging up the past again would only make things even messier.

"Alice is upset," she shared at random, wondering what had made her say it, but knowing unconsciously that Marshall would latch on.

"About Abigail?" he was still stuck on his original thought, but Mary was swift in steering him away.

"No," short and sweet. "About Norah. I think maybe she got her head bitten off one time too many."

"Did she say something to you?"

"No, but I can tell," Mary insisted with a hint of dominance in her voice; just because she wasn't Alice's favorite parent didn't mean she couldn't spot when she was withdrawn. "Living this way, it's no picnic for anyone."

Marshall's take was not something she anticipated, "I wouldn't say that in front of Norah. Not when she already thinks Mark doesn't want her."

"I'm not stupid."

"Not even a little bit," he concurred as Mary balled her dirty clothes and threw them in the laundry basket in the corner. "But speaking of Little Bit…" he couldn't resist smiling at the play on words. "She gives as good as she gets. Norah's jab was uncalled for today, I do admit, but neither one shies away from dishing it out…"

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" the woman sighed, dropping onto the edge of the bed, her back to Marshall. "Is this the best we can hope for? The two of them are so great at making the other feel like shit that we don't have to worry about their feelings being hurt?"

"Well, that's not quite what I…"

"Marshall, I don't know what to do," it was the first time she had admitted it so succinctly, no barriers or pretenses. "I really don't know what to do. It's _everything_ with Norah these days. I never would've told her about Raph if I'd thought she would blow her stack like that, dishonest or not."

The chief seemed to sense he should not interrupt, although his inspector felt the mattress give, like perhaps he was moving closer to her.

"I mean, why does she care what you and I did all those years ago? It doesn't have any effect on her, and yet she acts like it's going to alter the entire course of her existence…"

"Well, teenagers having a peculiar way of processing," Marshall broke in gently. "Everything from hairstyles to the boy on the other basketball team in gym alters the entire course of their existence."

"But, Alice didn't care."

"Alice isn't thirteen. And Alice's father isn't getting remarried."

The old Mary would've said something to the effect of, 'You bet your ass he's not,' in a snarky reply, but this Mary didn't make the effort.

"Does one have something to do with the other?" her eyes flicked over her shoulder to see how near Marshall was; he was perched cross-legged behind her, chin in his palm. "I don't see how."

"Well…" apparently, an intimate conversation such as this required that he not speak to the back of her head; he scooted on his butt so he was right behind to her, although still keeping some measure of distance. "I don't think the correlation comes in with you having been engaged to Raph and Mark being engaged to Jill…"

"So, then?"

"So…" Marshall's cheeks puffed out when he exhaled so heartily. "I think, though I really have no idea, that it is perhaps seeing one's parents in a new light – a more human light. You get me?"

"I guess…"

Mary turned his hypothesis over in her brain. As she'd already reflected over recently, she had known from a very young age that her parents were not exactly upstanding citizens, at least during her childhood. But, they'd still been _just_ her parents for a number of years – Jinx was _just_ her mother and James _just_ her father. Yes, Jinx was a drunk and disorderly, but she was her wasted mom, just as James was her criminal dad.

It wasn't until she was an adult that she'd really started to see Jinx as a woman, a person with needs and wants and struggles and accomplishments that went beyond her failed marriage and her children. The light had begun to glimmer when she'd committed herself to rehab, a decision that came for her daughters, but also for herself. From that point on, she'd been 'Jinx' and 'Mom' simultaneously.

While she might've gotten there with Jinx, Mary didn't think she'd ever reached such a point with her father. He'd been too elusive for too long to be anything other than the man who had abandoned her at the tender age of seven with too big a burden to bear. When he'd finally returned, it had really been too late. There was no changing her mind.

But, she couldn't be entirely certain of what Marshall had meant by his conjecture, and so she was fortunate he chose to expound upon it in typical Marshall fashion.

"We expect a lot of Norah – not that we shouldn't, but we do. We expect her to be responsible, to do her homework, to make good decisions, to start regulating her behavior as she grows up…"

"Yeah, and look how well that's shaping up…" Mary complained, but her husband ignored her.

"And, I'm sure she perceives that we come down on her hard when she slips up," accurate or not, Mary knew this was true. "And so, it must feel like a double standard to her to find out that all of us have been…" He was choosing his phrasing carefully, unsure if he wanted to paint the adults in their family in an overly negative light. "…Well, less than conscientious at times over the years. Hidden courtships, never-before-heard-of fiancées, and the like."

"So, in other words, we're a big group of hypocrites," the blonde sniped.

"Not hypocrites. Humans," he reiterated. "But, I have no doubt Norah would view it as the former."

This gave Mary quite enough to grasp, and it didn't give her any guidance on how to take action, which was the dilemma she had initially posed to her former partner. Although, deep down, she hadn't expected he would have a ready-made solution. And yet, she still felt that there had been no improvements as the days continued to fade away. Norah got testier and testier and they were no closer to the source of her aggression. Mary was convinced it was more than all the changes swirling in her personal life, because she had been out of sorts long before Mark had announced his trifecta of transformations.

"I think there's something going on with her that we don't know about," there was no reason to keep her theories to herself. "Something at school. All this whining about how the teachers can't stand her, how she never wants a boyfriend…"

Here, she rotated all the way around, hoping to get a read on Marshall's opinion by looking at his features. His sweet, tender eyes were very round in his face as he listened so attentively, reserving judgment until she was through. It was this that made her ditch her examination of the clothes hanging in the closet, bouncing around so they were face-to-face.

"When was the last time you heard her mention any friends?"

"Not recently," the taller gave in, gloomy at the thought. "Not a good sign. Middle school is a mecca for rumors, if Robyn can be believed."

"Do you think Robyn would know what's bugging her?" Mary hadn't even thought of interrogating her niece, and her zealous tone caused Marshall to shake his head and talk her off the ledge.

"I would exercise great caution in opening that can of worms," he warned. "Robyn is not our informant, and if Norah found out we were snooping, I don't think she'd restrain herself from kicking a few holes in the wall."

Mary knew he was right, but she wasn't going to say so. If she got desperate, Brandi's daughter would be an excellent source, and she wasn't going to blow it by letting Marshall know her intentions. He could be the virtuous one. She could be the one who got the job done.

"You don't think it's telling that she won't confide in anyone?" the woman prodded instead.

"I do, but going behind her back isn't the way to find out what's up."

"Then, what is?"

The breath that Marshall took upon indexing this question was so deep that Mary could see his chest rise and fall. It was a familiar look – it said he had been mulling without her, sculpting a course of action, whether it was successful or not. This might've been a good thing, except for the fact that he looked noticeably guarded as he eyed his wife, which could only mean that he anticipated disapproval.

"What?" Mary spat penetratingly, not liking the skittish look on his face.

Marshall started in a leisurely way, perhaps hoping his smooth appearance would rub off on his bride.

"Now, this isn't a bribe to get Norah to spill her guts, it's not a give and take; I just think that…"

" _What_ isn't a bribe?" Mary didn't let him finish, more mistrustful by the second.

"It's an idea, just a thought, an experiment…"

"This isn't science class, Marshall," she reminded him in her most dangerous, tell-me-now-or-you'll-get-a-whack-to-your-forearm voice. "Any 'experiments' you have in mind aren't going to involve test tubes and Bunsen burners, so you can quit calling it that. What harebrained scheme have you cooked up?"

Now he looked slightly miffed, "Have you ever known me to orchestrate anything 'harebrained'?"

"First time for everything."

"What would you think about…?" he hitched only for a moment, and from the way his top lip curled over his bottom, Mary had the distinct impression he was varying his proposition halfway through his speech. "…About getting Norah a pet?"

Whatever Mary had expected him to say, it was not this. Her first, uncensored thought, was that it was completely absurd and that she couldn't fathom where her normally level-headed husband would come up with such a thing. Their lives were busy enough; they didn't need some barking, meowing, squawking, peeing, whimpering flea bag taking over their abode, tearing up the hardwood floors, and making the place smell like a horse stall.

It was out of the question. It was impossible. No gerbils, no hamsters, no cats, no birds, and definitely no…

"What kind of pet?"

She had to know. Maybe she'd get lucky. Maybe he would say goldfish, the only thing she would allow through her front door. But, he didn't.

"Maybe…a dog?"

Of all the available options, this was the absolute worst animal Marshall could've chosen. Mary despised dogs. She felt dirty just being around them – their slobber, their muddy paws, their panting, the way they licked every inch of your bare skin, and yapped their heads off at all hours of the night. She was done with newborns, and a dog wasn't so far off, although she'd never allowed people to make such a comparison when she'd had infants. During the brief time she had owned a mutt, Oscar, she had felt her home was being invaded, her life infringed upon by some mangy, grubby beast that tore up her house, from her papers to her shoes.

It wasn't as if Marshall couldn't guess her reaction by the aghast look on her face, but she did not intend for there to be any doubt.

"No. Way."

"Could you at least attempt an open mind for five minutes before you shoot me down completely?" Marshall was all ready for the debate, she could tell.

"No, I won't," it was juvenile, but she wouldn't waffle. "We are not getting a dog. First of all, we don't even know if Norah likes dogs…"

"Mary, everybody likes dogs."

"Everybody does _not_!" she argued. "I don't! I hate them! They're gross; we are not having one here," she tried to appear unwavering, not to be convinced. "And, even if by some cosmic twist of fate I were to agree to this – which I am _not_ – how is it supposed to help Norah? It's just something else she can be pissed at."

"It's something she can _take care of_ ," Marshall emphasized, cutting in when he had the chance. "You of all people should know how cathartic that can be."

"Except I don't get my jollies nuzzling up with something that's going to poop on our floors and turn our pillows into feathers."

"It's more than that," he laid out the plan, clearly having been ruminating on this for at least a little while. "We all need companionship, and if she's having this much trouble at school with her peers, then feeling like she's needed, like she's relied upon, could be a big help. It's someone to come home to."

"She's not an aging fifty-year-old chiropractor with no wife and a bald spot, Marshall," Mary wasn't giving up so easily. "She's a teenage girl, and if I survived the perils of adolescence, then she can too."

But, taking this view gave the woman a bit of a chill that she hoped wouldn't show. In her heart of hearts, she did not believe Norah should have to brave the road she was on by herself, and especially not the way that Mary had. She wouldn't wish that on anyone, nor did she intend to vocalize the, 'buck up and get over it' method to her daughter.

"You really want things to continue the way they are?" the chief posed, eyebrows arched, like he knew Mary was bluffing.

"Do _you_?" it was snotty, but she had to hang on somehow.

"No, I don't, which is why something needs to change for the better, and I don't see the harm in adding another body to our already enthusiastic flock…"

"We're the ones who are going to end up taking care of this thing, you know that, don't you?" without even realizing it, Mary had unintentionally given the green light for picking out a canine in the near future. "Especially if it's supposed to be some sort of hokey surprise for Norah…"

"You never know," Marshall shrugged carelessly. "Norah might be the one that surprises us. If we make it clear to her that this dog belongs to _her_ , not us, not Alice, then it's possible she'll step up to the plate."

"Well, I still think you're forgetting something important here, Mr. Fix-It," Mary made it sound like she had been withholding this roadblock all along, when really it had just occurred to her. "What about Mark? Norah already doesn't want anything to do with him, and if we buy her some mutt that she falls in love with, there is no way she's going to leave him to go shack up with dad and step-mommy-dearest when Wednesday nights roll around."

But her man, of course, was already a step ahead of her, "I thought of that," he said. "And, if Mark is on board, we can have the dog go back and forth with her. It will solidify the idea that it's hers, and then maybe she won't hate going over there so much."

The blonde stared at him, with his impish smile and playful, periwinkle eyes, dulled in the soft yellow glow of the bedside lamp. Obviously, he felt he had closed all the holes, that there was no reason not to dive into this adventure headfirst. You'd think nothing could go wrong if Marshall was at the helm. He considered everything, and he was so good at laying out all the finest points that it was nearly impossible to say no.

And, Mary longed to. She really did. But, a sudden picture flashed into her brain, one she hadn't studied in a very long time. Maybe it was because of all the discussions about Raph and Abigail that day; she couldn't know. But, the memory chipped away at her hard-edged psyche just enough to weaken her into uttering a yes.

She saw a dimly light room, only a single light over a kitchen sink penetrating the dankness. A gentle, steamy breeze drifted in through a screen door, but the sensation on her skin was cool. Lounging on shiny hardwood was a much younger Marshall and an infinitely younger Norah – just shy of her first birthday, wearing nothing but a light green sleeper and a diaper. Between them was a docile, patient pit bull, allowing his head to be rubbed by the little girl's tiny, tentative fingers.

" _That's a doggie. Is that a doggie? See how happy he is with you? He likes that…"_

Mary despised herself to succumbing to such devils, for being such a sap, but it was enough. She would moan her displeasure only a minute longer, so as not to give the impression she was throwing in the towel right away.

"Have you considered Alice?" she questioned shrewdly. "She's not going to like missing out; being told Norah is the sole owner around here…"

"Alice will adjust," Marshall didn't seem even slightly concerned about this. "She might feel jealous or slighted, yes, but she'll bounce back. It's not as if she isn't going to get any time with the dog; once the novelty wears off for Norah, everyone will get their chance."

Mention of the brunette put Mary in mind of something else, and she used it to divert as long as possible.

"Speaking of Alice, what were she and Robyn looking at today? What was in that box?"

"Oh, they were searching for some home video that has Robyn dancing a recital when she was about Alice's age," he waved a flippant hand, casting the hunt aside. "I guess Robyn wants to teach her some of the steps, but she can't remember them, so she wanted a look at the evidence."

"We have home videos of Robyn?" this seemed odd. "Wouldn't they be at Brandi's?"

"They'd already looked there, so Brandi told them they could try here, but there were several tapes that your mom had filmed and so they were having a hard time finding the right one," he explained. "And, anyway…" he was too smart to be rebuffed. "You are stalling, inspector."

Mary knew that and, evidently, Marshall had known it too. He didn't waste any time serving his proposition right back on her plate. He was a master at persuading people when he wanted to be.

"What's it gonna be? Are we off to the shelter by daybreak?"

His corny phrasing earned him a roll of the eyes, but the word 'daybreak' once again made her recall Norah's one and only experience with a dog. Even as an infant, it had thrilled her and it was Marshall, once again, who had given her that opportunity.

And so, feeling very much like a wuss who had copped out, she tried to hold onto that delightful picture, internally praying all the while that this would be worth it.

"Talk to Mark," she grumbled almost indistinctly. "And then we'll see."

And even Marshall knew that-that was as close to a 'yes' as he was going to get.

XXX

 **A/N: A dog! Yippee! No matter what Mary says, I loved Oscar, so I'd be all on board for another one. ;)**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Thank-you to my guest reviewer who pointed out my typo in the last chapter (I mean that sincerely). It was supposed to say that Norah is with Mark three nights a week, not four, and I am certain that I made that mistake elsewhere. I appreciate having an eye out for those things, because I never catch them all!**

XXX

"We're not getting a puppy."

"Uh-huh."

"And we're not getting one that looks like it's shaved in the shape of a bush."

"Uh-huh."

"And we are _definitely_ not getting that one. He'd take one of the girls' legs off."

"Uh-huh."

"And no little yippy ones that look more like a rat than a dog."

"Uh-huh."

"I don't like basset hounds either. They're too close to the ground; we'll be tripping over the thing."

"Uh-huh."

"Or beagles. They make too much noise. Or boxers or…"

"Mary."

It was the first time since they had walked into the animal shelter that Marshall had dignified her stipulations with something other than a barely audible grunt. He let her blow off steam, knowing that he already had her consent to pick up a canine, and Mark's blessing as well, but that hers came with a price. She was going to get to pass judgment on every candidate there was to choose from, and they wouldn't be walking out with one she deemed to have even the most minimalist flaw. Marshall knew if that were really the case, they would never get anywhere, and he was banking on her lightening up the longer time went on. Unfortunately, his patience ran out faster.

She called him to a halt in front of the cage of a particularly depressed-looking bulldog. Marshall had half a mind to make a, 'why the long face?' joke, but refrained, knowing from the look on his wife's face that she wasn't in the mood. A hand immediately went to her hip and she squinted through one eye at him, as though sizing up just how foolish he could be.

"What?" she demanded in response to her name.

"Must you make this such a tribulation?" Marshall sighed. "I know the concept may be alien to you, but a lot of individuals would think getting a pet is, dare I say it, fun."

"Then you must've bumped your head, because it is the opposite of fun."

"Speak for yourself, inspector," he requested. "And, you do not have to behave as though I am completely dim. Do you really think I would choose something as delicate as a yorkie? Or something as high-maintenance as a Saint Bernard?"

"Wouldn't put it past you."

Now he was the one who looked maddened by her juvenility, "Give me a break. And a little more credit."

"This, from the man who dragged me here on a Sunday afternoon when I could be at home enjoying the last even partially warm day we are going to have until March…"

"You hate the outdoors," Marshall replied shortly. "Am I supposed to believe you would camp out on our virtually useless patio just to soak up the sun?" he had to stifle a laugh at the image of Mary tanning, something that was more fitting to Brandi.

"Well, I'm sure as hell not going to enjoy it now that some mutt is going to be tearing it up," she figured. "And, how do you breathe in here?" for effect, Marshall was certain, she wrinkled her nose and almost pulled the collar of her shirt up over her face, but restrained herself. "It reeks."

The chief couldn't deny the smell wasn't the most pleasant of odors, but his nose had adjusted since they'd arrived. Far more distracting was the constant barking, scratching, squealing, and whimpering that was echoing from all corners. The main room at the shelter comprised of about eight rows of large cages, some glassed in front, some merely with bars, which gave the impression that all the dogs were imprisoned. Every time a door opened, whether it produced a costumer or a worker, the place would erupt with barks, many of the canines launching themselves at their locks in hopes of being treated with a visitor or a biscuit.

Unlike Marshall, Mary didn't appear to be softened toward any of the breeds, even the ones who looked miserable and lonely. A sap by nature, he wanted to take home all of them, especially those with their heads on their paws and woebegone eyes that stared longingly into his. He wondered what he could possibly do that would chip away at Mary's blackened heart when it came to rescuing an animal. He knew she cared more than she would let on, but the trick was getting her to admit it.

"The scent and the noise and the atmosphere are all part of the experience," he finally said to her last complaint. "Now, shall we?" he gestured forward, past all the dogs she had already shot down.

With a huff and a dirty look, she obeyed, but luckily, her desires hadn't been entirely unreasonable so far. Marshall, too, did not want a puppy, as it would be far too much work, and he had no special attachments to poodles, toy cups that could fit in the palm of your hand, or anything that was going to maul their children just with its size alone.

Trying to ignore the slippery, but also sullied floor, Mary trailed along behind her husband; doing everything she could to be open-minded in spite of the off-putting glare on her face. But, try as she might, she didn't find any dog they passed the least bit appealing. They were too big or too small, too loud or too meek, too slobbery or too prim; the list went on and on.

Finally, Marshall paused in front of the cage of a beast that looked to be part lab, its coat a glossy, wavy blonde. From his height and weight, he didn't appear to be overly young, and when Mary snuck a look at the card attached to the bars, it said he was already five years old.

"Goldie," she read off the name plate. "Original," a snort.

"Yes," Marshall concurred. "And, something tells me it would be difficult to switch to a new moniker after five years. Can't teach an old dog new tricks, as they say."

"Do you really think he's been here for five years?" Mary questioned, suddenly startled by the possibility. "That can't be right; he's so showy, surely somebody would've snapped him up long before now…"

"I doubt it," the man figured. "My guess is that he came from a home where the owners couldn't keep him – or else he was abandoned."

But, from the look of him, he didn't appear to have been dumped; he was too well-groomed. Mary had the sneaking suspicion that her partner was about to ask her opinion on this particular breed, and he didn't disappoint.

"What do you think, though?" he gestured indistinctly at Goldie, who was pressing right up against the bars of his cage, tongue hanging out, wagging his tail. "Not too old, not too young, so we would score in that area…"

"Yeah, I guess…" Mary chewed a hangnail, considering. "I mean, it beats a puppy…"

"We could ask to look at him," he suggested. "They have a corral around back, a patch of grass with balls and whatnot; we could take him for a spin," as if this animal were a car.

"I don't know…"

She wasn't trying to be uncooperative, in spite of her earlier protests, and she felt like an emotionless stone when she looked at a dog like this, so happy and beautiful, and she felt nothing. He was striking to behold, and would fit perfectly in a picture-frame family, his coat shining in the sun, his brown eyes lively and eager for love. It was hard to argue that Norah wouldn't like him, but Mary wasn't sold.

"He's so…"

How could she put this tactfully? Diplomacy wasn't exactly her most talented art form. It became more difficult to voice what she felt she needed to, especially now that Goldie was sniffing enthusiastically in the open crevices of the cage, even managing to give Marshall's hand a lick.

"So, what?" he wanted to know with a smirk as the pink tongue lapped up his flesh.

"I don't know…" the woman repeated, really feeling like a killjoy as she admitted what she was thinking. "…Standard? Cliché?"

Marshall pulled his fingers away and gave her a more calculated look, "How so?"

"Well, just look at him," she jerked her head, and the mutt chose this inopportune time to wag his tail a little harder, cocking his ears playfully as if trying to show just how cute he could be. "This isn't some cheesy movie out of the fifties. Don't you think he fits more with people like that?"

"Are you saying he's a little too Rin-Tin-Tin for you?"

"Or Lassie," she supplied. "Any minute now he'll be running off to save some kid from a well."

"I see," Marshall chuckled, and Mary was glad he was not berating her for daring to be negative. "So, we've ruled out the Poky Little Puppy types and the Old Yeller types…"

"Yeah…"

"Nothing of the Benji variety either, I'm guessing."

"I'd probably say no if I knew who that was."

Marshall ignored this, "Well, maybe we can take a completely different tack – bring home something a little more akin to Cujo. What do you think? Fangs, red eyes, able to rip human flesh from bone in a matter of seconds?"

"Look, I'm not saying I need some kind of wild wolf!" she protested, annoyed that he was making her sound so picky. "But, honestly, can you picture that dog in our house?" she pointed a jutting finger just to emphasize, which the canine immediately tried to nibble, and so she yanked it out of the way in a hurry.

"What's wrong with him?" Marshall argued.

"The thing's name is Goldie!" it was childish, but Mary couldn't let it go, even throwing up her hands in frustration. "I'm sorry, but it's just too much; we need a dog that molds with _us_ , not one that could be on the cover of a magazine."

"Something a little more ugly, then?"

"I didn't say that."

"Maybe not, but I think we're going to be here all day if I let your conditions dictate absolutely everything."

"You don't know that I…"

"You haven't offered up any choices," Marshall interrupted, which was most unlike him, but he knew his wife very well; it was best to head her off before she built momentum when it came to circumstances she wasn't crazy about. "All I see is you snarking and shooting every selection down…"

"I could pick one any time I wanted to, I just don't _want_ to…"

"So, pick."

It irked her when he called her bluff, mostly because he did it so infrequently. He knew when to save up, when to hoard his bossier side for when it would really count, and he clearly felt that now was the time to put her on the spot. She didn't like it, but she wasn't going to let him get away with it.

"Fine, I will," Mary rebuffed, sounding just like a snotty teenager.

"Be my guest," Marshall panned an arm across the aisle, indicating the row of dogs opposite them, a wily, devilish smirk on his face. "I've got all the time in the world."

Just to prove she could not be bullied, Mary swept right past him to do as he asked, giving his arm a light shove as she did so. As she strode down the column, her mind worked at breakneck speed, wheels whirring, grinding a mile a minute to land on a breed that was even remotely appealing. The longer she stalled, the more opportunity she would give Marshall to feel he had won – that she had come in with a bad attitude and wasn't going to let go of it, even if it meant Norah didn't end up with a dog after all. She could be infinitely stubborn, and he wouldn't put it past her to throw up her hands and say forget it.

Border collies, golden retrievers, Jack Russell terriers, squash-faced pugs, stubby Corgis with ears like a Vulcan, cocker spaniels that immediately made Mary think of six-year-old girls with curly pigtails, and mutts of every origin imaginable. She longed to feel a connection to at least one of them, and yet no spark ignited in her belly, not even a glimmer. She was not a dog person. She'd wanted to pretend, if not for Marshall than for Norah, but apparently she was incapable of putting her feelings aside for the greater good.

But, there was no way she was going to let Marshall know this, and so when she knew he was about to open his mouth and chastise her for her lack of compliance, she pounced. Stammering to a halt, she threw out her hand to the first dog she saw that didn't immediately make her back away, although she had no intentions of latching on.

"That one!" she tried to look authoritative and sure, though she was lying through her teeth and had chosen at random.

Marshall raised his eyebrows and peered expectantly around her shoulder, "Who? Him?"

"Yeah, him."

For the first time, Mary took a better look at the brute she had identified, which turned out not to be a brute at all. In fact, she could see why Marshall had-had trouble recognizing whom she was signaling out at first, because the dog in question was curled up in the corner of his cage, awake, but gazing at them out of big eyes the color of chocolate. He had a coco-colored face and a long nose, giant rounded ears flopping over his neck. The remainder of his body was speckled dark brunette and white, with only two large circles on his side disrupting the pattern in solid brown.

For some reason, Marshall seemed somewhat stumped by her choice, but maybe he knew that she'd thrown something out there purely to shut him up. Curiously, he picked up the card that gave further detail on the animal and read it aloud.

"He's a pointer…" he informed Mary in his best scholarly voice. "A German shorthaired pointer, to be exact. Only two years old."

Maybe that was where his surprise came in. Two was still pretty close to a baby, and Mary had specifically put the kibosh on anything so youthful. But, she was starting to think that anything around three years old was the best they could hope for. Much older, and they wouldn't get near as many years out of the dog as most families would hope for.

"His markings are interesting…" he continued, and then he stooped to the floor, enticing him over with his fingers. "Pretty calm too, at least right now, although I don't doubt he can get feisty…"

With Marshall's nails wiggling through the bars, the boy lifted himself off his hindquarters and came over to investigate. Mary noticed as he walked that his hips stuck out at a funny angle; she could practically see the bone underneath. Nonetheless, he sauntered right up to Marshall and immediately began sniffing his hand with such vigor that she could've heard him from across the room.

"What is he doing, checking to see if _you_ have fleas?" she remarked from her standing position, refusing to get much closer just yet.

"He's a hunting dog," Marshall promptly notified her. "His nose will be going twenty-four-seven."

"Lovely," she muttered under her breath, but she wasn't sure he heard, mostly because a bold, compelling voice sounded from behind them, making the woman whirl around.

"He's a keeper, that one."

Coming toward them was a woman around thirty, sporting a T-shirt advertising the shelter and a pair of muddy jeans. She had short brown hair that swung at her chin, and she was looking right at the dog Marshall was in the middle of petting – what little of him he could reach through the chain links, anyway. And, more apt to make small talk with strangers than his wife, he got back to his feet and faced the worker dead on.

"This one?" he asked just to be certain.

"Yep," she nodded forcefully, a nametag bearing the word, 'Tina' affixed to her shirt. "I'd take him home myself if I had any room. We've been calling him Freckles thanks to those spots on his back, but it hasn't stuck. He was supposed to be brought up to breed, but he didn't make the cut."

"What do you mean?" Marshall's eyes were getting that sympathetic look they did when anything unlucky occurred.

"He was born in a batch of puppies from two shorthaired pointers that were bred intentionally to continue the line, and the owners kept him for two years, but he ended up being smaller than they wanted…" she shrugged half-heartedly. "Didn't have the characteristics they were looking for either, I suppose – not the right coat, plus he has a hip problem…" that explained the way he walked. "Nothing serious, nothing that would affect a regular house dog, but some breeders are very specific…"

Not to mention critical, Mary thought. The whole thing sounded disgusting to her. She knew there had to be more responsible, less selective breeders out there, but these people sounded like they needed to be taken out back if they were going to dump a dog just because of the way he looked.

"Anyway, they ended up giving him to us," Tina finished, a hint of sadness in her voice. "He's been here about a month and I can't believe no one has taken him. He's so docile, but he knows how to play if you teach him. Housebroken and everything."

Mary feigned that she didn't see the grin spread across Marshall's face when she went on high alert at the term 'housebroken.' If they didn't have to teach him to pee outside rather than on her hardwood floors, they were more in business than they had been up to this point.

Mary could see in her husband's pale eyes that he was distressed by the thought of a good dog like this being put out to pasture. Even if the previous owners hadn't paid him much attention, they'd still been his home for two years, and he had to be confused about what had happened.

"Can we take a look at him?" Mary shocked even herself by being the one to put this in motion, but this seemed like their best bet so far; who knew picking so haphazardly could be so beneficial. "In the back?"

"You bet," Tina instantly pulled a key ring from the pocket of her jeans and unhooked a leash that was hanging on the door of the cage. "I'll clip him up and you can give him the once-over."

As she did as promised, Mary did her best to disregard Marshall's giddy features; he was clearly delighted that she was glomming onto something, although she had made no guarantees. The second they got outside and that misfit peed all over her shoes, the deal was off. It was going to take some heavy duty sucking up on her part to even get down on the ground and lay hands on this 'Freckles.' Part of her was embarrassed that she was so averse to creatures they called 'man's best friend,' but they just made her uncomfortable. If she cared enough to share this more intimately with Marshall, she was sure he'd have something to say about it, but now wasn't the time.

Tina led the pair of them, plus the pointer on his leash, outside to a circular pen fenced high on all sides, the dirt littered with tennis balls and chew toys. Mary supposed it had once been carpeted in lush green grass, but autumn's chill had definitely set in, and it was starting to go dry and brown. The breeze was more biting today, and the woman drew her blazer tighter around her, half-wishing she had brought something a little warmer. With any luck, they wouldn't be outside long.

"I'll give you a few minutes to get acquainted," Tina decided, letting Freckles off his leash; he immediately dove toward the ground, nose going a mile a minute just as Marshall had predicted. "We can talk more inside if you're interested in taking him home. He'd do well in most households, I would venture…"

"We have two girls," Marshall spoke up while Mary tried not to look too stiff, merely that she was giving the dog his space to thoroughly inspect the earth. "Thirteen and six – almost seven," Mary loved how he spoke about Norah as though she were his. "He'd be good with kids, then, you think?"

"I would imagine so," Tina stated. "He might be a little shy at first, take his time warming up to you, but that comes with dogs that have had previous owners for an extended period of time. I wouldn't guess he'd be timid for long; he knows who he can trust and who he can't."

Mary suddenly thought of the remainder of their brood, the expanded one that included more than just Norah and Alice.

"What about groups of people?" she piped up. "Lots of noise?" she couldn't help considering Robyn. "Would that scare him at all?"

"Nah…" Tina shook her head confidently. "He's been living in there for a month where there's barking going on at all hours of the day and night. He'd do fine."

"What about having more than one place to live?" Marshall stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets to keep them warm. "We're looking at Mary's daughter being the one to kind of stake her claim in him, so to speak…" at the mention of her name, the woman realized they hadn't properly introduced themselves, but it was immaterial now. "She's with us four or five nights a week and with her dad the other half. Would going back and forth be an issue?"

"So long as the rules and routines are consistent, I'm sure he'd adjust," Tina was making the mutt sound like the perfect find, Mary thought; she was clearly itching to get him into a good home before someone less desirable came along and tried to take him away. "Like I said, everything takes time, but if you hang with him, he'll hang with you."

On that note, she reiterated that she'd be inside if there was anything they needed, and then she disappeared back through the door, leaving Mary and Marshall to fend for themselves. The former had yet to actually touch the dog and was avoiding it as long as she possibly could. Instead, she stayed sedentary and watched Marshall pick up a ball to get his attention.

"Let's see how you fetch, buddy…" he wiggled the sphere in his palm until Freckles took notice; he licked his mouth keenly and waited at attention, tail wiggling back and forth. Marshall drew his arm back and let it fly, "Go get it!"

Without a moment's hesitation, the pointer took off for the corner, retrieved the ball, and trotted back to Marshall, depositing it at his feet.

"Nice one…" the man scratched his ears approvingly. "You're a clever boy. Can you catch too?"

Mary thought about making a smart remark, saying something to her husband to the effect of, 'Do you expect him to answer you?' But, she clamped her lips shut and watched, hoping fervently she did not appear too horribly stand-offish.

"Let's see here…" the chief held up the ball, moving it slowly up and down to make sure the dog was following it, and then he tossed it into the air.

The speckled beast leapt up and snapped his jaws around it at once. Mary had every intention this time of commenting about what a show-off this guy was, no better or worse than the preening Goldie inside, but she was caught off guard. Although he'd managed to snatch the ball, it had tumbled out of his mouth when he'd hit the ground, because one of his back legs seemed to have crumbled. He got up almost at once, scooting around in a sort of ungainly straddle, but the way he'd fallen suddenly concerned Mary.

"Why does he walk like that?" she inquired. "What's the matter with him?"

"You heard what she said," Marshall recalled. "There's something up with his hips, but he's perfectly fine. They would've said if it was something we had to manage. And, he runs great; I think it just gives out on him sometimes."

"Suppose he breaks one. What's that going to run us?"

"Ah…" Marshall sighed in a worldly way, shooting her a superior glance. "I had wondered when my fault-finding girl would come out to play. She's here at last!"

"Very funny," Mary groused, though she didn't find it amusing at all. "And, seriously, he drags his back end around like it weighs twice as much as his front."

"Not all the time," he argued. "And, anyway, are you really going to pretend like we could ask for better? He's already trained; if he came from a breeder, they would've spent a ton of time on such things…"

"Only to give up on him," she grumbled darkly. "What sort of people do that?"

Marshall was smart enough not to say what Mary knew he was thinking, that she was a lot more of a softie than she let on. Instead, he patted his thigh to call the dog over and crouched down on the crunchy, dying grass. He was obviously waiting for his wife to join him and then, as a joke, he tapped his leg again, calling her like she was the fleabag.

"I don't _think_ he'll bite," he teased, rubbing Freckles' ears as he sat nearby. "Come on; he isn't diseased. Get down here and pet him."

Reluctantly, knowing she looked ridiculous, Mary kept her face impassive and knelt next to her man, cautiously extending her fingers, which the dog attacked in a parade of sniffing almost at once. Not trying very hard to keep quiet, Marshall began to laugh.

"You'll go toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose with a hardened criminal and you're afraid to pet a dog?"

"I'm not afraid!" Mary snapped, not going to be painted as such. "I just don't jump in with both feet; I'm not reckless. I don't trust things that…"

What she had planned to say, she couldn't be sure, but Marshall went ahead and finished the sentence for her, anyway.

"Love you unconditionally?"

Was that actually it? Had Mary changed so little that she still kept people – and animals – at arm's length for fear of being hurt? She didn't honestly think this goofy dog would disappoint her in any way, unless Norah didn't take to him, in which case she was more likely to be disappointed in herself. In reality, she was far more scared of falling for the dog and losing him somehow, just as she was with humans. It was sad, really. Life with Marshall should've taught her a lot better. Love was, nine times out of ten, worth the risk.

Rather than respond to his inference, she bit the bullet and ran her hand over the top of the canine's head instead. He was softer than she remembered Oscar being, and he didn't have the same droopy jowls. He blinked rapidly the longer she caressed him and then nudged his head closer to her palm, asking for more.

"Greedy," she accused softly, and Marshall chuckled.

Tentatively, she allowed him to lick her fingers, making only a minimally gruesome face, forcing herself not to pull away in the first two seconds.

"Yeah-yeah, enough…" she finally said, giving him a pat to make up for not letting him taste every inch of her bare flesh. "Don't you have some food you can eat instead?"

Marshall didn't waste much time once pleasantries had been established.

"What do you think about this guy?"

Mary exhaled slowly, contemplating. He wasn't too young. He wasn't too old. He, with luck, was not going to ruin her furniture or floor because he couldn't remember to run out to the yard. The same good fortune meant he wasn't going to chew anything up, either. He was a little gangly and a sorry case, considering where he'd come from, and he did have a dumb name, but he was better than some 'best in show.'

"It doesn't matter what I think," the woman figured. "It's Norah that we're doing this for."

"True," Marshall agreed. "And, I could be wrong, as she is unpredictable anymore, but I think we have a winner. The fact that he is affectionate will sell her pretty quickly, I think. That's what everyone wants in a dog."

It was hard to deny that this wasn't a good fit, but Mary wasn't going down without a fight. And, anyway, Marshall knew her well enough to recognize what consent meant in her language.

"We're not calling him Freckles."

He laughed, big and loud, which caused the newest Mann-Shannon to bound over and skid on his weak hips to see what all the commotion was about.

"Copy that, inspector," he laid a kiss on her cheek. "Let's figure out when we can get this boy home."

XXX

 **A/N: Yay for dogs!**


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Big hugs to Jayne Leigh for all those catch-up reviews! They are lovely!**

XXX

Mary and Marshall went home that Sunday afternoon, not with a dog, but with an obscenely enormous orange pumpkin, plucked right from a bale of hay in front of the grocery store. Norah's newest companion would be picked up the next day, just in time for the girl to arrive home from school and meet him for the first time. She still didn't know of the parents' scheme to raise her spirits, but it would be a lot easier to keep from her since she was staying at Mark's another night. Neither Mary nor Marshall had heard from her since she'd been lugged to her father's against her will, and it was hard to say if no news was good news. You never could tell when Norah was involved.

The pumpkin was a ploy for Alice; Marshall had said they would carve it that evening when it was just the three of them, at which point they could explain about the dog. Mary still had severe qualms about how her youngest daughter would react to learning Norah was getting a pet and not her, but she opted to let her husband handle that; it had been his idea, after all. And, in any case, Alice loved to dictate the carving of jack o' lanterns each year and being able to call all the shots without Norah around was sure to stimulate her. She loved being in charge.

In order to give Brandi a break and allow her to spend at least some of the week with her immediate family, the two Marshals had enlisted Joanna to hang out with Alice while they'd been at the animal shelter. When they walked through the door, Marshall with both arms wrapped around the gargantuan pumpkin, she was shimmying around in front of the television. Mary just hoped MTV wasn't on the screen, as Alice had been known to sneak peeks at the dances displayed on such a channel when she conspired with Robyn.

Upon hearing the door close, she abandoned her performance and turned around, waving when she saw who it was.

"Hi, mommy!" she hollered, for Marshall was buried behind the pumpkin. "They're doing moon walking on this channel!" she pointed enthusiastically where Mary could indeed see a young Michael Jackson sliding back and forth as though on wheels.

"Well, that's new…" Mary observed. "What'd you do with Joanna? You didn't run her over, did you?"

"In here, dear…" a third voice called before Alice could respond.

Mary poked her head around the alcove of the entryway and saw that Mark's mother was seated at the island in the kitchen thumbing through a magazine. Her silver hair was touched by the weak sunshine filtering in through the curtains over the sink, and she smiled warmly once she had Mary's attention.

"There was some sort of marathon going on…" she waved her hand at the television. "Fairly harmless," a shrug. "But, I made her turn it off when 'Thriller' came on. You never know about these children and their nightmares…"

"I wouldn't have been scared!" Alice peeped, proving she had heard every word. "Norah said it's really old-fashioned, anyway – that the werewolf doesn't even look real."

"When you're older, Little Bit," Mary backed up Joanna. "But, I suppose a little Thriller would've been fitting what with Halloween right around the corner. Did you see what dad got?"

How she could miss it was anybody's guess, but Marshall managed to lift the pumpkin onto the countertop with a heave and a grunt, its fat orange belly rounded from every angle for all to see.

"It's so big!" Alice squealed, her chin just barely protruding the edge of the counter in her attempt to get a better look. "Can we carve it, daddy? And put it in the window?"

"I was thinking perhaps tonight, after dinner," Marshall compromised somewhat breathlessly, probably from muscling the vegetable through the house. "We could even roast some pumpkin seeds; you've never had those before."

The little girl frowned uncertainly; perhaps unable to envision anything that came out of the goopy confines of a pumpkin tasting good. Throw in her repugnance to most anything that grew out of the ground, and Mary thought her husband would have a tough time convincing her to try even one measly seed.

"They might be nasty," she forecasted. "Like peas. I _hate_ peas."

"Yes, we know," Mary allowed shortly.

"Don't knock it 'till you've given it a whirl, that's what I always say," Marshall proclaimed. "And, we will give that baby _quite_ a face, Big Al." To get her to giggle, he arranged his features into a ghastly expression of his own, tongue poking out, eyes crossed. "How does this grab you?"

"Daddy!" she shrieked, whacking his leg in hopes that he would return to normal. "It has to be _super_ creepy, not silly!" a requirement. "So that people who walk by will see it in the window and run away screaming! Then I'd get all the candy we're supposed to hand out!"

"So, that's your master plan, is it?" Marshall mused. "Stockpiling all the sweets for yourself when you don't even have a suitable outfit to wear yet…"

"No costume!" Joanna got in on the action. "You don't say. Less than five days to go, Alice; you'd better get a move on…"

"I'm _trying_!" she bleated. "Inspiration must strike!" this was thespian, and Mary felt positive she had heard the expression from Robyn, but it earned a hearty chuckle from Joanna, which was likely what she'd been going for.

"Well, my little twinkle toes…" Marshall held out his hand to his daughter, changing speeds at the drop of a hat, no doubt so his wife could be alone with Joanna and inform her of the afternoon's success. "Since we are deep in the throes of Halloween discussion, I believe there are a few decorations in the garage we could put up. Why don't you come take a gander with me?"

Alice didn't have to know what 'gander' meant to know that she got to go exploring with her father, and she accepted his offer at once. Mary decided to stay mum, because if she knew Marshall, he would keep the festoons to a minimum; he was well aware she hated an excess of ornamentation. A Christmas tree was as far as she went when the season called for it.

"Don't break into the pumpkin while we're gone!" the first grader ordered as she pranced off with Marshall.

"It's safe with us," Mary promised dryly, watching the pair disappear back through the front door in a matter of seconds.

Once they were gone, she went into the living room and flipped the TV off, no desire to watch Michael Jackson gyrate in the various years of his career. Once she made it back to the kitchen, Joanna had folded the corner of her magazine page down and slid it aside, standing up to place an empty water glass in the sink.

"Thanks for staying with her," Mary presented so they wouldn't be swathed in silence. "Brandi's been hanging out with her a lot lately and now that Peter's back from his trip, I'm sure she wants some time to herself…"

"Oh, it was no problem," Joanna's flippant wave was predictable as she turned with her back against the cabinets. "I feel like Norah's practically grown these days; I miss having little ones around."

While a teenager was hardly 'grown,' the blonde thought she knew what the other woman was getting at. There was no reason either of them should feel awkward about it, either. Any person who was willing to watch the child of her son's former wife and her new husband was obviously a very casual individual.

"Well…I guess you won't have to miss them much longer…" the inspector made herself bring it up, forcing the issue into the open. "Not once…April rolls around."

Joanna gave a nod and a soft smile, an eagle eye still fixed on Mary. She might be generally informal and easy to talk to, but she was also very appraising when she wanted to be; nothing got by under her nose. It was what had made her such a fine principal for so many years.

"You know, Mary, I haven't had a chance to talk to you since all this…business with Mark and Jill got underway."

It was kind of her to call it 'business' as oppose to something more flowery; it made the whole thing sound a lot more ordinary. Like it wasn't ransacking their lives like a messy bedroom and leaving the dirty underwear out on the lawn.

But, when Mary didn't say anything to her invitation, Joanna kept going.

"I haven't had a chance to talk to Norah either, for that matter."

"Well, join the club," the blonde gave a bitter chuckle. "I don't think you'd be hearing much."

"Not according to Mark," Joanna gathered. "His version of the story is that she comes apart at the seams every hour on the hour and that it's all his fault."

"He doesn't have to be so dramatic…" Mary muttered, not thinking about the fact that her chatting companion could hear her, but she didn't appear insulted.

"He does embellish sometimes, especially when he's stressed," the other admitted, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and looking somewhat lost in thought. "I think the prospect of planning a wedding and tackling fatherhood again has him a little strung out…"

"I don't blame him. Not really."

"I wouldn't blame _you_ if you were feeling a little ill at ease with the whole thing."

Mary wanted to pounce on this, to say that she despised the entire future Norah was going to be punted into, but Joanna's understanding would only go so far. Mark was her son, Jill her future daughter-in-law, and they were both giving her a brand new grandbaby thirteen years after her only one. When it came down to it, she would not be on Mary's side; jumping the gun and revealing her true feelings would not do her any favors.

"It's…fine…" was the best she could come up with, hunching her shoulders indifferently. "I mean; I am happy for him. I'm worried about Norah, but I'm happy for him."

"Not feeling replaced?"

"Replaced?" Mary hadn't expected this, and she sounded loud when she bounced the word back to its owner. "By what? By who?"

"Well, by Jill," Joanna stated as though it were obvious. "Another mother in the picture and all…"

"It's pretty hard to feel snubbed when Norah doesn't even like Jill."

She wished she could suck the words back in as soon as she said them, but it was too late. And, it didn't really matter; Joanna had eyes and ears and a child that was probably dumping all his problems in her lap at every available opportunity. Mark surely would've confided that his daughter abhorred his soon-to-be-bride. Mary confirming it made no difference.

But, Joanna was about to prove that she was more on top of things than the other woman had even realized. It wasn't Norah to whom she was referring, and that jilted Mary into being on her guard more than she anticipated she'd have to be on a Sunday afternoon.

"Someone else does, though."

At first, the inspector felt mortifyingly dim, because she didn't have a clue what Mark's mother was talking about. But, then her eyes traveled to the pumpkin sitting starkly on the counter, to the doorway that Marshall and Alice had just skipped through, and she got it. It wasn't her elder daughter that had taken a shine to Jill. It was the younger – the one Mary was nothing like, the one who had been her daddy's baby from the second she had been born.

"Alice just…likes attention…" she tried to dismiss the accusation as best she could, roaming the linoleum agitatedly. "Jill gives her that, she sees her at school; it makes her feel important…"

"How does it make you feel?"

"I don't know," Mary replied a little too quickly, knowing at once that it made her appear to be on the defensive. "The more the merrier?"

It was an effort not to wince at such a phrase coming out of her mouth, because there was no way in hell Joanna would buy that she was so frivolous when it came to Mark's prospects. And, even if she were, she never would've used such a formulaic expression. It just meant she was hiding her true thoughts, and the older woman was sure to know it.

"I would be alerting the presses if that were the case," Joanna chortled good-naturedly. "Now, come on, honey; this is me…" holding her palms out, as if to show Mary had nothing to fear. "When have you ever known me to be offended by a little honesty?"

But, Mary couldn't be entirely sure what Joanna wanted her to be honest _about_. So far, she'd been mostly up front about things. She wasn't experiencing any pangs of jealousy when it came to Norah gaining a step-mother, not when her daughter avoided Jill like the plague. If the thirteen year old were fond of her, it would be different. And, even though Alice clung to Mark's girlfriend like she was her shadow, Mary didn't feel entirely traded in-in that case either. Alice latched onto anyone who gave her a second look and would praise her prideful, innocently egotistical attitude.

"I'm not losing sleep over Alice," she finally said, not knowing what else she could offer up. "I'm used to her leaving me in the dust. I've never been the one she goes to. She runs to Marshall or Brandi or Robyn long before she gets to me. Jill is just another one to add to the list."

"I don't think it's quite the same with Jill."

"Why not?"

"Because everyone else is linked to both Norah _and_ Alice," Joanna surmised. "Jill's only supposed to be associated with Norah, but that doesn't seem to be holding much weight."

Mary was an intelligent woman, and still she felt like the other woman was speaking in code; it took her several long seconds to determine what she was saying. But, the pieces began to fall into place bit-by-bit, like long forgotten toys clunking slowly down a flight of stairs.

Norah wasn't upset because Jill could replace Mary, or even that Jill was stealing her daddy away. She was upset that Alice had wormed her way into her world with Mark, a world that should've exclusively belonged to her. Not only had Alice made herself a major part of it, she was adored and much better liked than the gruff teenager that sulked morosely in the corners, infected with middle school tragedy and who knew what else.

This was all according to Joanna, of course, and the inspector knew it went deeper than that, but it was definitely an angle she hadn't considered. It would explain Norah's more outward hostility toward her sister, the feeling that she was the center of everything and always got her way. Jill teaching in the very building where Alice attended school could've only strengthened their relationship – and Norah's resentment.

"So, this isn't about me," Mary blurted out as she was thinking about all this. "Is that what you're saying?"

"I'm certainly not a psychologist, Mary – I was a principal, although in some ways they're not so different," changing her tune halfway through. "I don't see a lot of Norah these days, but when I do, I hear an awful lot about Alice the Aggravating."

"You make her sound like a superhero – or a villain."

"If you listen to Norah, she could be," she concluded. "Spreading poison everywhere from the sound of it. Everybody loves Alice, Alice is everyone's favorite, even Jill can't get enough Alice…"

"Really?" Mary whispered in a small voice, feeling guilty that she had managed to neglect noticing just how derisive the middle schooler felt toward her baby sister. "I guess it's good to know, but that doesn't make me feel much better…"

"You mustn't beat yourself up, dear," Joanna absolved her of her responsibility in seconds. "Nuclear families, as they call them in this century, bring all kinds of problems out of the woodwork. What I dealt with is a cakewalk in comparison to what you are going through."

"How's that?" Mary was genuinely curious this time, rabid for any sliver of advice she could get.

"Oh, well, when Mark's father died it opened up a very ugly can of worms when I started dating again."

"But, he was grown."

"Didn't matter," her counter was cutting and direct, and Mary should've known as much; adulthood had not altered her feelings about her separated parents one iota. "About a year after his dad passed, I went out with a man I'd met at some PTO function. Mark had an absolute fit."

Mary did not know why she had the compulsion to laugh, but she did; up until recently, Mark had not exactly been the tantrum type, although Norah had definitely tested his mettle as of late.

"He did?" she inched closer across the floor, as though that would make the story even more compelling.

"Oh, he went on and on for days about my being disloyal – the word 'betrayal' was thrown around a lot. It all came out in the wash, but it was hardly fun for awhile there…"

Joanna might be telling herself everything had worked itself out, that they'd found a way past it, but Mary couldn't ignore the fact that Mark's mother had never remarried, even though her late husband had been gone for so many years now. No wedge had been driven between mother and son, but were his protests the reasons she had sat back and watched life go by?

But, unresolved issues between her ex-husband and former mother-in-law shouldn't be on her mind right now, and she hastened into the more imperative point.

"You don't think Norah really believes Mark is somehow being unfaithful to me by marrying Jill, do you?" she couldn't fathom that this was true. "Because, I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous…"

"No," Joanna stated. "But, I wouldn't put it past her to think Alice was double-crossing her by being so friendly with Jill."

This, too, struck Mary as simply ludicrous, and she was unable to stop herself from letting her distaste of the idea be known.

"If that's true, it's outrageous," she insisted. "Alice is six years old, for Christ sakes. Norah expects her plant her flag on Tower Shannon and have done with it?"

The silver-haired woman guffawed at the metaphor and shook her head, grey eyes twinkling at the way Mary could be so immediately dismissive. She did that when she was afraid of reality.

"Mary, I have not a clue what goes on in Norah's head anymore, but in my experience, teenagers see in black and white and not much color," proving the younger wasn't the only one who could be poetic. "The girl has had so much to wade through and she may be completely illogical and grasping at straws, but I wouldn't rule anything out."

So, what was Mary really supposed to do with this information? Part of her wanted to ask Joanna what should come next, but she was really just the messenger. It seemed there was a new intricacy to Norah's muddled existence every single day. How could Mary keep up with all of them?

Did she tell Alice to shove off and quit being nice to Jill? She wouldn't. Did she confront Norah and try to get her to admit that she was plain old jealous of her baby sister and to grow up? That would only succeed in creating their umpteenth argument. It was like her child just insisted on being difficult, on making everything complex. Life was just one big guessing game.

Mary's energy was sapped from all the deductive reasoning; her brain was worn out. Norah refused to speak to anyone, so all the speculation about the minutiae in her mind was just that – speculation. Everyone from her father to her grandmother to her cousin to her aunt to her sister claimed to know the magic cause of her belligerence. But, they couldn't all be right, could they?

Mary must've gotten lost in thought, because Joanna was giving her a hawkish look, like she knew she had put too much on her plate and now wished to take some of it back.

"Take all this with a grain of salt," she advised, stepping more toward the woman, perhaps in hopes of bringing her back to earth. "You and Marshall, you're on top of things – you are crazy about that child, and anyone with eyes knows it."

"I'm not so sure about that," Mary said softly, thinking of the way her teenager bawled on and on about how Alice was the preferred daughter. "I feel like we're just buying her off," finally, she brought up Freckles, soon to be renamed if she had her way.

"Why, because of this dog?"

"Why else?"

"It's a gesture, honey," she pressed tenderly. "Not a bribe, not a dangling carrot she's supposed to jump for. The reasoning behind it is sound…"

"Yeah, right," a sneer, scraping her fingers through her hair a little too harshly. "I didn't believe the claptrap Marshall fed me; I won't believe it any better coming from you…"

"Well, you should learn to," Joanna shot back seriously. "Because it makes sense. Norah needs something to make her feel productive. Something to love…"

"She's not wasting any of that love on any of us, that's for sure."

The allegation was out of her mouth before she could stop herself, and Mary immediately wondered what Norah would've said if she could've heard it. But, it was getting almost impossible for the mother to think otherwise. That her beloved little girl, the one who had smacked baseballs, smiled drippy grins at the swimming pool, had persuaded her to cut Max's hair, and had laughed herself silly over Marshall's nightly antics while he brushed out her tangled Rapunzel hair, was the same specimen that sat before them today.

Mary loved her so much it physically ached, and she got nothing but condescension in return. How did you repair that? Was there a cure? Would she ever become who she once was?

Fortunately, Joanna didn't seem bothered by the blonde's cavalier comment and even gave a sympathetic sigh, knowing that she didn't mean any harm by painting Norah as so hurtful.

"You know that's not what I was getting at," she insisted. "It's one thing to _need_. It's another to _be_ needed."

"Yeah…"

"It is," Joanna was more forceful this time, maybe because she thought Mary wasn't buying into her premise. "You and Marshall have each other, Alice and Robyn have each other, Mark and Jill have each other…"

"Yeah, and Alice has Jill too. And Alice has Marshall and Alice has Brandi…" Mary cut in. "Isn't that what you were getting at earlier?"

"Well…" the elder shrugged. "It's rough sledding being the first born. Don't you think?"

Mary ought to know a thing or two about getting kicked to the curb because she was the responsible older one. Could that be yet another slight her seventh grader was experiencing? How in the world was she supposed to keep track?

At last count, Norah felt maddened by Mark and Jill getting married, left out due to her new baby brother or sister, neglected in the plans to move houses, sad because Jinx wasn't around to confide in, shunned at school because she wasn't Robyn, and inferior at home because she wasn't Alice.

The amount of predicaments they were up against was staggering. Mary almost wanted to cry just thinking about it, and Joanna must've noticed, because she placed a warm hand on her shoulder. It was an effort to stop her lip from quivering at the considerate nature Mark's mother displayed. It made her yearn for her own mother all over again.

"Near as I can tell, it's just 'rough sledding' being Norah," the inspector projected blankly, trying to keep her voice from warbling. "I'm never going to figure this kid out."

"Never say never," Joanna whispered. "You're a crafty girl, Mary. You'll outwit her or break her soon enough."

But, right now, Mary could hardly decide which of those options she would prefer. Happiness for Norah was the ultimate goal. But, it seemed that wasn't even a choice.

XXX

 **A/N: I wanted to make sure I got Joanna in, even if it wasn't for very long.**


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: So many catch-up reviews! So exciting!**

XXX

"Yuck!"

"Ick!"

"Daddy, no!"

"Don't-don't-don't!"

"Ewwwwww!"

All this and more was what Mary heard as she, her husband, and her baby daughter carved out the mammoth pumpkin that had been secured earlier in the day. Alice squealed with mirth at every available opportunity, feigning nausea and revulsion, but the delight in her screeches could not be ignored as she tore around the kitchen. Marshall was like a big kid, chasing her with goopy hands sticky with seeds and pumpkin guts, only getting close enough to run a mucky finger down her cheek, which she would immediately wipe away.

In-between sprints, Alice would clamber on a barstool and add to the drawing she was penning – a depiction of what she wanted her jack o' lantern to look like. Meanwhile, Marshall continued to scoop out most of the insides on his own while Mary separated seeds for them to roast at a later date. She was mostly quiet, trying to enjoy the cozy contentment the three of them were wrapped in, making every effort not to be glad that the anxiety Norah usually presented was nonexistent. It wasn't Norah she didn't want around, the woman told herself. It was the tension.

The sky outside had turned to twilight, a brilliant half moon sneaking it's way behind the living room curtains, Alice already dressed for bed after having wolfed down her dinner in favor of getting started on their masterpiece. She was having so much fun that Mary hated to ruin it by bringing up what she knew she had to – that a four-legged friend would be joining them by the next afternoon.

"Big Al, you have to get a hand in here," Marshall insisted for what felt like the fiftieth time, holding up another fistful of stringy orange mess. "You haven't _truly_ carved a pumpkin until you've gotten down in the dirt – so to speak."

Alice shook her head prissily, "You won't know how to make his face unless I finish my picture." And then, "Besides. It's _disgusting_ ," she stuck out her tongue for effect.

"What, may I ask is to fear from the interior of a vegetable?" the man queried innocently. "I mean, you don't say 'boo' when you break your green beans open."

"Pumpkins aren't technically a fruit because they have seeds, are they?" Mary chimed in from her spot at the sink. "Surely you wouldn't make a scientific oversight like that, would you, doofus?"

"Well, I suppose it is a food with its many misconceptions," he conceded. "In the same realm as tomatoes, some might say. Who can be sure to which category it belongs?"

"Mark today on your calendar, Alice," she teased. "For once, dad actually _doesn't_ know something."

"Nuh-uh…" the child grunted with a slow wag of her head. "He knows _everything_."

"You hear that?" he boasted.

"Gag me…"

At her mother's word, Alice mimed sticking a finger down her throat and hacked spectacularly. Mary supposed she had that one coming, but she leaned over and stuck a finger in the little girl's side anyway, prompting another yelp followed by a smile.

"How's that sketch coming, anyway?" the female wanted to know, peering over Alice's shoulder for a look. "You going to be done sometime this year?"

"Almost," Alice reported. "I'm just finishing his eyelashes."

"Eyelashes?" Mary turned around fully, abandoning her meticulous sorting of seeds.

"I am a great talent, sugar, but I do not construe that I am skilled enough to etch out actual _eyelashes_ ," Marshall warned. "After all, I am no Van Gogh."

"He was a _painter_ , dingus," his wife pointed out just to get another jab in. "Not a sculptor. Isn't that what you're doing?"

"Now that you mention it, I always wanted to try my hand at those ice statutes…"

"You're not serious…"

"Or maybe hedge mazes. What do you think about that?" he was getting that silly, boyish look; the one he displayed when he knew he was getting Mary's goat and wanted to see how far he could push it. "I could snip our bushes out front into some truly fantastic shapes. We could have depictions of deer and stags right in our very own yard…"

"What, do we live at some hoity-toity palace now?" Mary wrinkled her nose. "Next you'll be talking about putting in fountains with little cupids that spit water…" just the thought was enough to make her vomit. "I wouldn't wait ten seconds before I signed the divorce papers if you put me through that…"

Marshall aimed a playful gaze in her direction, sauntering over with his hands still caked in stringy pumpkin slime.

"Oh, she likes me to _think_ she's scornful of my imaginations, she does…"

Mary wouldn't have put it past him to come at her with both sets of fingers poised and ready to smear all over her clothes, especially when she could tell he was ready to plant one on her, but Alice interrupted their good humor. A shout once again streamed into their midst, and she bounded off the stool with a flourish, brandishing her paper for all to see.

"Finished!" she announced, bouncing on tiptoes and waving her drawing in Marshall's face. "I want it _just_ like this, daddy!" settling for nothing less. "Make it look _real_ spooky! I'll get you a knife!"

Marshall clutched her shoulder before she could bolt to the nearest drawer, "No sharp objects for my girl," he rectified. "But, I do want to see this creation. Give it here…"

While his two ladies watched, he regarded Alice's illustration with a lot of humming and head-tilting, which Mary suspected was for his daughter's benefit. He loved leading her on when she was on tenterhooks, which she definitely was at the moment – hands curled together, standing right on the points of her toes, expectancy written all over her face. She, too, must've been feeling the freedom that breezed through the house when Norah was not there to erupt. The thought made Mary sad, and she squashed it down as quickly as possible.

"I suppose I can whip up something resembling your lovely design…" he promised, never one to let his little girl down. "Give me some time to work my magic. While you're waiting, you can have some dessert…" he pointed to a brand new package of vanilla wafers sitting on the counter. "See if you can outfox mom; she might spare a few out of the goodness of her heart."

The elaborate suggestion made Mary roll her eyes, but it didn't take Alice long to whip around and give her mother the best coy look she possessed. Not only that, she kicked the offer up a notch, never one to reconcile the most nominal option.

"With pudding?" she proposed sweetly.

Ordinarily, Mary probably would've turned her down, but she was in a better mood than usual, and she was about to tell her child that they were presenting Norah with a generous gift, while giving her nothing. She could dress up a few bland cookies with something a little more substantial.

"Get a carton from the pantry," she gestured. "I'll grab a napkin."

Pleased, Alice darted off at once, pattering across the hardwood on bare feet, stopping to hitch up the back of her elastic-cuff pajama pants on the way. Her hair was in a bouncy, curly ponytail, and it bobbed above her shoulders as she stood on the bottom shelf to reach a pudding cup, something Mary had told her she should never do because the wooden slat could break. This time, she let it go, trying not to chuckle at the way Marshall was now studying the pumpkin with his tongue poking out the side of his mouth. It was highly likely he had promised his daughter a piece de resistance he couldn't deliver.

Alice was back on her stool to observe her father in no time flat, ripping open the vanilla wafers and pulling out six until Mary grabbed two and put them back. Happily, the first grader dipped her cookies and sucked the chocolate pudding off, trusting her daddy to come up with one magnificent pumpkin.

Why Mary had the sudden urge to shatter everything at that precise moment, she couldn't have said for sure. But, the dog was going to have to come up sometime, and the clock was ticking. If Alice was going to pitch a fit out of envy, it was probably best to know it soon.

"Little Bit, there's something I need to tell you."

Mary cursed herself for sounding so serious, like what she was about to reveal was a life or death scenario. Even Marshall shot her a quizzical look, which gave him an excuse to ditch his carving momentarily. She sighed and shook her head, knowing it would be best to start over.

"There's just…something we should talk about. Nothing you need to be worried about," she assured. "Just, something you should know. Okay?"

Understandably so, Alice didn't seem to have the faintest clue what the woman was referring to. But, she paused in slurping excess chocolate off the corner of her vanilla wafer. After a moment or two, she finished the bite and swallowed, shrugging her shoulders.

"Okay," she agreed, tongue combing her lips to make sure she hadn't missed a taste.

At this, Mary threw the briefest of glimpses in Marshall's direction, asking for wordless permission to go. He gave a quick nod and got back to the jack o' lantern, picking up a Sharpie and squeaking black lines across the curved surface to copy Alice's blueprint. If he was casual, maybe their child would be too.

"Well, you know how you had to stay with Joanna today because dad and I had to take care of something?" Mary began slowly.

"Uh-huh…" she murmured. "Joanna said you had to look at something. I thought it was for work. Did you see Stan? Was Lia with him? Because, I really want to show her how my jive is going and…"

Mary ought to have known she would get off the beaten path, and she held up a hand to silence her, certain they'd be here all day if she let her get in deep enough.

"No, we weren't with Stan," she made it sound clear cut, not one of their normal beat-around-the-bush WITSEC lies. "Or Lia. But, we did go and look at something."

Alice poked her further, "What?"

Looking into her clear, almost translucent blue eyes, which were so much like Marshall's, Mary felt herself begin to sink. A big part of her wanted to lay the entire truth on the table, tell Alice to hell with what she thought, she wasn't the parent, and if she didn't like that Norah was gaining a pet and she wasn't, then that was her too bad. Another part felt a lot more sympathy; Alice might be nothing but a pesky baby sister sometimes, one that yanked Norah's chain purely to get a reaction, but she'd had to muddle through the misfortune like anyone else. She received a lot of blame from the teenager, and she didn't earn a huge chunk of it.

Was it really fair to reward the daughter that was being so thorny, and tell the other to simply endure? Fair or not, it was too late to turn around now.

"A dog," Mary spit out blankly. "We went to look at a dog."

Alice was nonplussed, "Why?"

Now that she was talking, she wanted to keep going, "Because we were thinking about getting one. And, we decided – no more thinking," that much was obvious, considering the tongue-tied way Mary was fumbling over things. "We decided to go for it."

Here, the brunette's eyes lit up and she completely forgot about her late-night snack to sit up a little further in her seat. Mary knew the relief she herself felt in this moment was to be very short-lived. But, she and Marshall had determined to stand by their plan to give Norah the brunt of the job; they couldn't get cold feet so late in the game.

"We're getting a dog?" Alice's tone was shaking with suppressed glee. " _Really?_ Is it a puppy? What kind? When is she coming here?"

The questions shot at the inspector like bullets; if only they really were the tiny bits of lead, she might be able to deal with them a little easier. She was used to guns. Childish disappointment was a lot harder to manage.

"Well, it's not a puppy," Mary nipped that one in the bud quickly, and she motioned for the six-year-old to sit down. "It is a dog – a full-grown dog," although two was not really an adult.

"What kind?" Alice demanded.

"A German shorthaired pointer," Marshall piped up unexpectedly and, setting his marker down, he fished his cell phone out of his back pocket. "Come here. I'll show you a picture…"

A photograph might just make things worse when the truth came out, Mary thought, but she allowed her husband to show off the animal, Alice craning her neck around the pumpkin to get a look. Marshall scrolled through his images before coming up with the one he desired, and then passed the phone into the girl's hand so she could get a good view.

"She's so _cute!_ " this was predictable because, to a first grader, everyone and everything but the boy across the alphabet carpet was adorable. "What's her name?"

Mary mustered only minimal disparagement, "They're calling her Freckles, but…"

"We should name her something different!" Alice pronounced, practically throwing the phone back at her father. "Like Buttercup! Or Angel! Or Coco! Or…!"

"First of all…" there were only so many kitschy monikers the blonde could take; hardly daring to believe a child of hers could be so full of rainbows and unicorns. "This dog is a boy. Second of all…"

Mary meant to go on, to let everything hang out, no bones about it, but it was like her throat synched up tight when she tried. Alice's excitement was contagious, but not something she wanted to catch and allow to take hold of her. Already, she wanted to tone things down, but she was afraid they'd already thrown themselves in too hurriedly. Any minute now they were going to hit their heads on the bottom of the pool.

Her hesitation must've been at least semi palpable, because Marshall was going to save her. How could she have ever thought he would discard this conversation just to give his attention to some lopsided, lumpy pumpkin with black streaks for eyelashes?

"Listen, sugar…"

His voice was low, non-hysterical, non-confrontational, but it caused Alice to take notice, especially when he pushed the pumpkin to the edge of the counter so there was nothing between them. She chewed the last few bites of her cookie and stared at him, obviously unable to fathom any world in which adding a dog to their clan was a bad thing.

"We chose to get a dog as a kind of present for Norah," he explained gently. "She's growing up and can handle more responsibility, and we thought it was something she might enjoy."

Even without hearing all the words, Alice could clearly tell where this was headed, and her face fell so dramatically it was as though her eyelids and lashes were connected to puppet strings. Even her mouth turned down at the corners and she blinked slowly. Fortunately, a tantrum didn't seem to be brewing, but Mary hated that she looked so deceived. They'd gotten her hopes up and then dashed them all in about two minutes.

"He's just for Norah?" she whispered sadly.

"Don't think of it that way," Marshall was prepared to turn everything right-side up as quickly as he could. "Think of it as mom and I helping Norah to make a friend – someone she can be devoted to." Backpedaling briefly, "Do you know what 'devoted' means?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Doesn't it just mean she can love?"

"I'd say that's about right," Marshall seemed impressed by her intellect, but no less troubled by her glumness. "I know it might be hard for you to notice, Alice, but I think Norah's lonely…"

"She is not."

For the first time, Mary felt a chill shiver through her spine. Alice didn't sound angry, exactly, but she definitely sounded unyielding, like there was no changing her mind. If she thought this was unjust, she was going to think it. And, whatever she'd already believed about Norah and the excuses for her outbursts, Marshall pacifying her wasn't going to change her speculation about that either.

It was more than likely that Alice thought Norah's behavior was a result of pure meanness, that she was selfish and nothing more. What other explanation was there when you were six? Thinking outside the box was reserved for grown-ups.

"You don't think Norah's lonely?" classic Marshall; he was going to let her express herself.

"No," Alice maintained. "Why would she be lonely? She sees people at school every day, and she sees me and you and mom here, and Mark and Jill, and Robyn and Brandi and Max, and Jill's having a baby. The baby can be her friend. Why can't the dog be my friend too?"

"I didn't mean that he couldn't," Marshall resolved, choosing not to address the younger daughter's thoughts about Norah's circle of people. "He can. You will get to play with the dog and take care of him, but I want you to understand that he belongs to Norah. We will tell her that she needs to share, that you want time with him too, but he's going to be Norah's dog."

For Marshall, this was being firm, and Mary was proud of him. Crushing Alice was heart-wrenching for him, but he was doing it. That he loved Norah so much and wanted to help her this badly made his wife want to pull him into her arms and thank him that instant.

"Norah will _never_ share him," Alice pouted, arms folded over her stomach. "She doesn't know _how_ to share."

"We'll see that she does," the man promised. "The dog will be here when Norah is here, and then when she stays with Mark he will go with her, if that's what she wants."

"Did Norah pick him?" the little one inquired suddenly.

"No," he told her, Mary now almost absent from the discussion. "Mom and I did," bringing her back in. "He's a surprise. We're going to bring him home tomorrow, and you and Norah will both get to see him."

Little more could be said on that note, and the chief might've thought that giving Alice some time to digest – or brood – was what was best, because he returned to the pumpkin in silence. Mary's eyes darted between him and her daughter – Marshall starting to carve awkwardly with his knife, Alice partially scowling, partially looking as though she were merely lost in thought. So far, the mother thought they'd done well. Alice was obviously put out, but it could've been much worse. Perhaps she was smart enough to know that it would be impossible to keep a full-grown canine from her completely. She might at this very minute be formulating a plan to lure the beast away from her big sister at the first accessible chance.

But, she gave Mary something of a small shock, since the look on the six-year-old's face would indicate she was nothing but irritated by this turn of events. Her words, however, spoke of something much deeper – that she, even as young as she was, could grasp why her parents were doing this. And that they weren't doing it to leave her out in the cold.

"If Norah gets the dog and she really likes him…" a laborious utter, orbs probing from mother to father and back again. "…Does that mean she'll be nice again?"

And Mary had to wonder, with a twinge of remorse in her stomach, if that wasn't the reason they'd devised this plan all along.

XXX

 **A/N: So, Alice didn't pitch a fit – at least there's that. ;)**


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: Kind of a different chapter here – I'm not sure where the inspiration for it came from, or if it keeps everyone in character. Lia arrives, though!**

XXX

Once Monday rolled around, Mary was beginning to have severe second thoughts about the dog business. While Alice had reacted a lot more favorably than she would've originally thought, it didn't change that the stitches she felt poking at her skin said she was doing this for all the wrong reasons.

Whatever Marshall said, it felt like a bribe, a kickback, like they were sweetening Norah up in order to get her to straighten up and fly right. And, if that wasn't bad enough even if it worked, what if it didn't? What if she remained the same old sourpuss she'd been since she'd entered middle school? Where would that leave them? Back to guessing, back to finagling, back to wondering if she would ever mature enough to take her topsy-turvy life in stride.

Worse still, what if she didn't like the dog? Marshall could trumpet on all he wanted about 'man's best friend' but Mary had never been partial to canines or animals in general, and they couldn't be sure Norah didn't feel the same way. She might stomp her feet all over their gesture, and not only would they feel stupid for having thought they knew the way to her heart, they would then be left with a pet that she didn't even want. Mary supposed, if it came to that, they could enlist Alice to foster him in a more nurturing way, but the woman's stomach still squirmed at the thought of Norah turning her nose up at the bequest.

But, in spite of her misgivings, Mary allowed Marshall to trundle off to the animal shelter that afternoon, Stan in tow, to pick up 'Freckles' and bring him home. The men had-had to convene that morning on a few WITSEC related issues concerning, as always, DC and its stingy funds. So, they met for lunch and then opted to journey on, just the two of them, while Mary went to the dance studio to hang out with Lia until they returned.

Because it was a Monday afternoon, all the kids were in school, and that meant the studio was virtually empty until about three o'clock. Lia and her stodgier colleague, Darcy, had each had lessons with toddlers in the morning, but the after-lunch hour was free. In Lia's half of the building, Mary sat at a round table pushed into the corner, scribbling WITSEC forms with her glasses sliding down her nose.

The floor in front of her was wide open, no furniture to clutter the dance space. The hardwood gleamed beneath her feet, lit up by the afternoon sun streaming through the wall-length window that looked onto the sidewalk outside. The ballet bar ran around the edges, though Lia rarely used it considering the more contemporary dances she taught. Mirrors upon mirrors reflected every inch of the space, which meant Mary kept her head down more than usual.

Disregarding her companion completely, Lia had music warbling through the room, and she was practicing steps while glancing up at her reflection. Mary looked up only when the clicking and clacking of her shoes made enough noise that she couldn't ignore it. She didn't often hang out with Lia by herself; Stan or Marshall was usually present, but she was waiting for her husband to return with the car; she couldn't go anywhere until he got back.

"What are you doing?" Mary finally asked, knowing she sounded coarse and bad-mannered, but not really caring.

It was hard to say if the promise of the dog was causing her bitter disposition, or being in the studio for an extended period of time. She almost always made Marshall fetch Alice when she had lessons because she didn't like being in it with Jinx gone. This wasn't something she'd admitted, although Marshall could probably guess.

Lia halted her moves and turned around, her long brown hair whirling in a sheet over her shoulder. She pushed it back over her forehead with her nails and gave her a stare that was more amused than exasperated.

"You are the limit, Mary," she stated fervently, never one to shy away from sharing her thoughts. "Do I need to _show_ you what I am doing so there will be no doubt?"

She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and held out her palm, indicating for the inspector to join her on the floor. Mary snorted and shook her head, getting back to her papers, but they didn't keep her interest. The overly bright sunshine made her heavy-headed and sleepy.

"I don't dance," she proclaimed starkly. "Not now, not ever. I didn't even dance at my wedding."

Lia gave a mock-pout, "For shame," she even tsk-tsked to seal the deal. "All women should know how to dance."

"No dice," she grumbled. "You're not going to sway me. I lived with a dancer for the better part of my life. If she couldn't convince me to lace up ballet slippers, you can't either."

"Who said anything about ballet?" Lia sounded nothing short of scandalized. "That is Darcy's department…" waving an errant hand at the door in the far corner which led to the other owner's space. "And, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to get mixed up with her. Alice was running for the hills after one class…"

"Well, Alice needs to learn that not _everything_ is fun and games," this was her piece of wisdom for the day. "If Robyn can handle a little structure, she can too."

"It is all in the _mood_ , Mary…" Lia gushed on, lips pursing and long skirt rustling around her ankles. "The temperament. Ballet is a dance of precision and poise – piano plinking and swans gliding…" this, indeed, did not sound like Alice. "It is the dances of passion that make your little one's heart beat. I've never seen hips like hers…"

"She's six; she's not supposed to have any hips," Mary snapped.

"If you had seen her fandango, you would feel differently."

"Bet I wouldn't."

"Goodness-goodness…" clucking her tongue impatiently. "All this petulance just because of a little puppy?"

"He's _not_ a puppy," Mary felt like she had said this far too many times in the last twenty-four hours. "Why do people have so much trouble believing that? Personally, if we're going to do this, I prefer to get one that isn't going to be some wiggling, licking, peeing, furry bundle that you can't even catch unless you're on the track team."

"Well…" Lia was getting that devious look again, one that showed the blonde could try to divert all she wanted, but she wasn't going to give up on her lightheartedness. "A surefire way to build up those calves would be to practice a little mambo…"

At this, she swiveled her hips in what she clearly thought was an enticing way, but Mary only rolled her eyes and tried to get back to her work. Not before she got the last word in, however.

"I'll try my hand at _your_ profession the day _you_ try _your_ hand at mine…" she bargained in a sniping tone. "Drop and give me twenty. You'll know how to duck and cover after three sessions."

"Stanley has already taught me how to hit the ground," the other asserted triumphantly. "You'd be surprised by how fast I can get on my knees."

Truthfully, Mary wasn't surprised by either eventuality – that Lia was quick on her feet or that Stan had schooled her in the more involved aspects of being a US Marshal. He would want his woman to be able to defend herself and, at any rate, it would make her feel included in a job she would always know very little about.

The dancer must've thought she had stumped her companion at last, because Mary remained quiet, a drum beat still thrumming away in the background as her pencil scratched across her paper. She could feel Lia's eyes on her, however, like they were boring into the back of her neck, though she did her best to ignore her.

Mary liked Lia as well as she liked anyone, but it was getting to the point where they had known each other long enough that Lia was beginning to feel comfortable bridging gaps between them. Topics that used to be taboo in order to keep their relationship fairly relaxed were now coming out of the woodwork. Deep down, Mary was infinitely grateful she had been the one to take over the studio after Jinx had died, and equally as happy she made Stan's life so fulfilling. But, they were hardly best friends, and she could get testy when those she felt had no business prying stuck their nose in her affairs.

But, Lia, with her wild gestures and zealous nature, floral beach skirts in the middle of winter and flashy, vibrant blouses had never been intimidated by Mary's stand-offish quality. If anything, she embraced it and as the years had passed, she remained undaunted by the sarcasm.

The click-clack noise returned to Mary's ears and she was well aware the other woman was approaching her. To save face, she didn't look up. Lia cut to the fat quite quickly, though.

"Mary, isn't it difficult to be so angry all the time?" for once, she did not sound blithe, but genuinely curious, if not overly concerned. "Why would you choose that? It would exhaust me."

It was very much like Stan's wife not to place blame on her for the way she was, but to wonder aloud what would cause a person to stray down that path. But, what Lia didn't understand – at least, what she figured she didn't grasp – was that it wasn't always a choice. At least not in Mary's mind.

But, to start off, she would only deflect.

"Who says I'm angry?" denial was her middle name. "Angry and annoyed are not the same thing."

Lia mostly discounted this, "Do you think you are not allowed to be happy?" she threw out there. "Or, do you just not know how to be?"

What a question. And yet, sadly, it was not the first time Mary had been presented with such a thing. Years and years ago, before children, before marriage, before so many happenings that it felt like a life someone else had lived; Eleanor had put the same issue on the table. Mary had been rude to her the way she was now being rude to Lia, and she had commented how hard it must be for the inspector to be so unhappy so much of the time.

What was it with Stan's girlfriends being able to read her like an open book? Why did they put up with her? Did they love Stan enough to take her along for the ride? Lia had gone the whole nine yards and married him; not only had she accepted Mary as part of the deal, but Marshall and the kids as well.

"I'm as happy as I have any right to be," the blonde settled on, removing her glasses because she wasn't getting any work done and the glare from the sunshine into the lenses was giving her a headache. "I react to the things that happen to me like anyone intelligent that knows the good is few and far between."

But, even as she spoke, Mary knew she was lying. Lia had-had her pegged from the get-go. She really didn't know how to behave as though she were content with her slice of life. Ever since her father had left, she'd learned to look for the devils lurking in every shadow around every corner. When he had materialized so many years later, he had proven that nowhere was safe; she was never free from unpleasant surprises. To be on her guard was to be smart. Norah's volatile nature was educating her in that first hand.

But, Lia wasn't giving up, "I just find it sad that you're so afraid of losing everything great in your life that you don't stop to enjoy any of it."

"That isn't true."

"Are you sure?" Lia's plucked eyebrows flew up. "Who else is this uptight about getting a dog?"

"Oh, just shut up about the dog…" Mary sighed, but her tone was devoid of malice. "This isn't about the dog. It's about Norah – it's _always_ about Norah…"

"You can't fix Norah."

This threw Mary for a loop, "Did I say that I could?"

"No, but I have been with Stanley long enough to know how you are, Mary," she declared. "You want to mend everything, and sometimes you just can't. There are some things you can't protect Norah from, and a new family is one of them. I've been through this; I know…"

"Aren't your parents divorced?" she had forgotten this until just now.

"Yes. I was nine. My father remarried when I was twelve."

"Really?"

"Yes. And, I thought it was a fate worse than death. But, I made it. And, my dad married someone a lot less pleasant than this Jill."

"You don't even know Jill," it was a weak charge, one that wouldn't hold up, but she felt better putting it out there. "Maybe she gives Norah hell…"

"Not from what makes it through the grapevine," Lia shook her head, not to be influenced. "Alice raves about her…"

"Alice doesn't know the half of it," Mary snarled, but a petite part of her felt badly about taking pot shots at Jill when she wasn't around to defend herself. "All she sees is a ticket to a wedding where she gets to wear some horrendously expensive dress, throw flowers all over the aisle, and stuff herself with two-tier cake to the point where she barfs her guts out."

Mary knew this did not paint the most attractive picture, and she wasn't making a very good case for herself when it came to her ability – or lack thereof – to look on the bright side. Lia was likely going to leave today thinking Mary was the most brooding, pessimistic person on the planet. But, if she was at all sharp, she'd known that long ago and wasn't going to hold it against her now.

And, in response to her bleak representation of Mark's eventual nuptials, she just chuckled and threw her head back. For a moment, Mary thought she was in the clear, but it turned out Lia wasn't finished.

"You beat all, Mary; you really do…" she'd said something like this already, but apparently it was worth repeating. "When it comes time for the big, 'I do' I have no question that Norah will be there with bells on, looking beautiful, charming everyone and _dancing_ the night away."

This was a gross exaggeration, but the inspector chose only to focus on the latter portion.

"Norah isn't any more interested in perfecting her quickstep than I am."

"And yet, _someone_ will have to teach her a few moves – daughter of the groom and all…"

"That someone can be you," Mary saw where this was going and intended to head it off, but Lia had always had a mind of her own.

"Or…"

And, without waiting for the blonde's consent, she swept her pile of papers to the side without even glancing at them, curling Mary's fingers into her palm as though they were lovers destined to glide onto the floor and wow the crowd. As was expected, the Marshal protested every step of the way, moaning and groaning even as she allowed Lia to drag her to her feet against her will.

"No…" she insisted, using her free hand to save her glasses from falling to the ground. "No-no-no-no; I won't…"

"Come on, Mary…" she coaxed almost seductively, but the mentioned knew it was the performer in her. "Loosen up…let the music take you away…"

"It's not taking me anywhere…"

But, Lia wasn't listening and, though she could've fought if she'd really wanted to, Mary found herself waltzed out into the middle of the floor, feeling as though there were a spotlight shining on her even though there was no one around to watch. Lia left her momentarily and galloped to a clutter of items she had left haphazardly against the wall. Producing a remote from nowhere, she aimed it at the CD player plugged into a nearby outlet and amped up the volume.

The sound pounded crudely into Mary's ears, only intensifying the feeling that she was some sort of exhibit in a zoo. A strumming guitar throbbed into the cavernous space, followed by a parade of drums. Lia immediately started shaking her shoulders and swiveling her hips in time to the beat, but Mary would've liked nothing better than to run and hide. Orange and black lights, like Christmas strands, were strung across the long window in favor of the upcoming holiday, and construction paper pumpkins bordered the sill. Leaves circled and spun on the sidewalk outside and Mary prayed fervently that not a soul would walk by and see her.

"We'll start with something easy…" Lia suggested, getting into the spirit of things. "The box step, perhaps?"

Mary was indignant, "I do know that one, believe it or not," she was not a complete novice, and had been forced to parade around with men a few times in her life.

"Samba, then?"

"I don't think so," she didn't like the sound of that at all, nor did she enjoy Lia twisting her way closer to her.

"We could jive; you and Alice could be partners…"

"Keep dreaming."

"Mary, you must learn to let go; the stress around you is suffocating…"

And, without any warning in the least, she was suddenly upon her, hands on her sides, trying to force her hips into some kind of shuffle. It took all her inner power not to jump away, and she remained stiff as a solider, refusing to be baited into this. Nothing was going to make her forget her worries and problems at home, and especially not some silly dance.

"Relax! Feel the music!" Lia urged ardently.

If anything was at all smothering, it was the tune blasting out of the speakers. Lia might be able to soak the rhythm in, but Mary could not. All she could think about was how dumb she would look if she just abandoned all decorum. She was a US Marshal, not an entertainer, not by any stretch of the imagination.

And, so she stood, feeling like one hell of a spoilsport, but not knowing how to shed her cynicism; it was never something she had been good at. And yet, observing Lia, with her skirt twirling around her, hair spinning about her face, feet working themselves into all kinds of complicated steps, she had to admit, if just to herself, that she did look free. Free of hassle, of apprehension, of fret. She was fully committed to the moment she had lost herself in right then.

And suddenly, Mary remembered Jinx – Jinx, who had stood on her tiptoes and pirouetted around with wild abandon in front of dozens of eager little girls with buns in their hair and stars in their eyes. She thought of what a kick her mother would get out of her bopping and bouncing around her former residence for nothing but fun. It would've tickled her pink.

Unsure how to begin, she started out simply bobbing her knees and flexing her elbows discreetly, not wanting to make too big a show. Nothing got by Lia, however.

"There you go!" she encouraged excitedly. "Don't think – just go with it! You're on an island! Sunset is approaching! A richly handsome young man has just noticed you across the sand and offered you a drink…"

There was only one man whom Mary would allow to buy her anything, only one she wanted to be stuck on the beach with, and the image alone was enough to have her dropping appearances and moving a little more unreservedly. Lia was thrilled, she could tell by the look on her face, but Mary did her best to ignore that. Her fingers were beginning to snap, her feet were scrambling in circles; after a few moments, she even extracted a spin from somewhere deep within. Her feet floated across the floor and Lia let out a whoop.

"The men are flocking, my dear!"

No answer, just more pivoting – eyes closing, hips snapping to rival even Alice's.

"A natural, I say! A natural…"

Mary yearned to be able to feel like this more often. Nothing mattered at all; it was better than a stiff drink because she knew she wouldn't have a hangover afterward. She had forever mocked Jinx's fondness for dancing, but she rapidly understood the attraction. Your mind went on vacation and your body took over.

"The loss of control is intoxicating…"

Lia was all wrapped up in the experience, and the other woman was willing to buy into every word until she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair was flying, obscuring her eyes, but they grabbed just enough of the real world to see that they were no longer alone.

In one heart-stopping millisecond, she spotted the two men lingering in the doorway, both with grins on their faces, and the high was swept out of her as though on a frosty winter wind. Almost immediately, she screeched to a halt – and so abruptly that she nearly fell over and had to grab the ballet shaft to steady herself.

"Bravo! Encore!"

Marshall was applauding and Mary's face had grown so red she was sure she must resemble a ripe tomato. Cheeks blazing, she breathed hard, unable to believe she'd been caught in such a quandary. With a second plummet of her stomach, she realized that there were not two boys in their midst, but three.

A raucous barking echoed terribly inside the spacious studio and Mary's eyes traveled to the German shorthaired pointer standing at Marshall's feet, attached to a leash. The man allowed him to slip free and he careened across the slick floor right at Mary as though she were his long-lost love. She slipped faintly to the ground where he slobbered all over her face.

"He's a darling!" Lia mooned, not embarrassed in the least.

For several minutes, Mary allowed the hoopla of the dog's presence to overtake them, lost underneath drooling kisses and Lia's petting hands, not to mention Marshall's and Stan's recap of their trip to the animal shelter. It seemed 'Freckles' was bought and paid for, ready to go home along with the crate, food bowls, and box full of toys that had been purchased at a nearby pet shop.

But, the woman could only take so much saliva, and she eventually pawed the mutt away, making a mental note to give her face a thorough washing sooner rather than later.

"Get off…get off…" she murmured absently, pushing the dog in the opposite direction, where he slid ungracefully on the floor due to his wonky hips. "Go on…"

Fortunately, he was getting enough attention that he didn't seem downtrodden by Mary's attitude and he continued to skitter around at the center of the group, tail wagging and mouth hanging open in something resembling a smile.

"Isn't he a handsome fellow?" Stan publicized proudly, giving Freckles a fatherly pat. "I'd say our dynamic duo picked well, wouldn't you?" questioning Lia.

"Oh, he is a ten!" she made kissy faces at the dog while Mary did what she could to flatten her hair, wondering if she would be lucky enough to have her jazz session go unmentioned. "If they hadn't already snatched him, I'd take him home myself."

"Well, he is already spoken for," Marshall affirmed. "A Mann-Shannon through and through. We'll just have to wait for Norah to give him a proper title."

"She'll come up with something fitting, no sweat…" Stan assumed. And then, annihilating Mary's hopes of being ignored, "Hey there, kiddo."

The goofy smirk and quirk of one eyebrow said this was not a customary greeting, that he was still humored by her uninhibited demonstration of dancing.

"Hi," she grumbled, cantankerous as ever, fighting the compulsion to smack the grin off the deputy's mug.

"I see my lady has been schooling you in a step or two."

"Oh, we were having a grand old time!" Lia announced before Mary could get a word in edgewise. "Boogying our troubles away!"

"Yes, I noticed that," Marshall chimed in evocatively. "It was quite a show you put on," it sounded as though he were responding to Lia, but his blue eyes, more fiery than usual, stayed centered on his wife. "I wish I'd seen more of it."

Despite how satisfied the taller man obviously was with his partner's moving and shaking, Mary couldn't get over the need to explain herself, and yet she really didn't know how. It made her feel so bare and raw to know that he'd seen her the way he had, even if he had seen far more of her since they'd gotten together twelve years prior. Somehow, this was not the same. It was one thing to be intimate in the privacy of your own home, but for Mary to let loose and behave in such a ditzy manner, all fears cast aside, was less liberating and more humiliating.

She had a certain image she liked to uphold, and while her husband knew who she really was underneath, he still had to work fairly diligently at peeling her layers apart. She did not give herself away with reckless abandon, and she was mortified to have been viewed in such a carefree light. She didn't want him – or anyone else – getting any ideas about her character.

She was a bad ass, not some ridiculous little girl grooving to a beat without a second thought.

"I was just…" her words trailed out clumsily, like she had forgotten how to speak. "We were just…" implicating Lia really wouldn't help her, but she did it anyway. "…Messing around…" a shrug as she dug into her sides with her fingernails. "…It was nothing."

Marshall had to know she was embarrassed, but he nudged his way forward, his way of showing that she had nothing to be self-conscious about.

"Sometimes messy isn't such a bad thing," he remarked casually. "You know?"

Sure, Mary knew. Her man was always telling her that being open and honest, not just with him, but with herself, was key to a joyful existence. But, if you listened to Lia, Mary didn't have an inkling about how to be content anyway, so what difference did being free really make?

"I guess, but…" she would chew her own arm off if it meant being done with this. "Really. It was nothing. It…I didn't even want to…"

"It was a turn on," Marshall hissed out of nowhere while Lia and Stan were occupied with the dog. "I've never seen you act like that," lowering his voice another octave. "Sexy doesn't begin to describe it."

Now her skin flushed for an entirely different reason, but now wasn't the time to get into something so physical. They had a dog to cart back to the house, after all, and Mary didn't want to give Lia any more excuses to doll her up and primp her like she was about to be exhibited in a pageant. Miss New Mexico – as if.

"We should get going…" she recommended with a hard swallow. "Brandi's grabbing Max and Alice and you'll need to go and get Norah and Robyn. We'll want to get this flea bag settled."

The derogatory comment was made so that she sounded more like her old self, but it only created a smug grin from Marshall, which meant he saw right through her. Luckily, he let her get away with it and retrieved the dog's leash from the floor, tugging on it in order to pull the pointer off of Stan's shoes.

"It's a new beginning…" the chief intoned, philosophical as ever. "For us, for Norah – for everyone. I'd say that little recital you just put on is a good start to being more amenable to fresh undertakings."

Mary would not go that far, but as they said their goodbyes to Lia and Stan, the woman hurrying to get out as quickly as possible before Stan made a crack about her performance, she couldn't help noticing what was showcased on the wall as they made for the door.

Lia's side of the studio had always been more colorful and pulsating than Darcy's, which was swathed in shades of pale pink and mint green. Whereas the ballet teacher chose to highlight portraits of famous classic presentations – The Nutcracker, Swan Lake – Lia had decorated her half with photos of her students. Alice had earned a place of honor, as had Robyn, even though she was far more of a fixture next door. Countless other images depicted children Mary wasn't familiar with, all looking as though they were having the time of their lives.

And, right there on the door that granted as passage between classrooms, was a print of Jinx – Mary knew the same one resided on the other side of the hatch, on Darcy's wall. It had been Lia's idea to pay homage to the woman who had gotten the studio off the ground, but sometimes when Mary looked at the shot; it caused a wrenching sensation in her stomach that she had to hide.

Today, she felt that same ache of sadness she always did, but it was accompanied by a funny sense of accomplishment as well. Jinx would've been delighted by her unquestionably hilarious dancing, and not because it was racy either. Because it meant she had done something for someone else – in this case, Lia – and had permitted herself to shake off what was sheltered and take a risk instead.

Jinx's face was gorgeous and it smiled sweetly at her as Mary exited the premises, husband and dog in her wake. She was sitting on the corner of her desk in her office, black leggings hugging her calves and an oversized T-shirt with the studio's name spelled across her chest – ankles crossed, head titled, hands folded, she looked just like an advertisement, but Mary saw the true Jinx underneath.

And, she was well aware that what Marshall had said was true – this was a new adventure. And, whatever Norah's response, it was time to stick her big toe in the pool and test the waters. Jinx had never been shy about taking chances. Mary liked to think it was the single most important trait she had inherited from her mother. She hoped this bet was a good one.

XXX

 **A/N: So grateful for everyone who is reading and reviewing! You guys are the best!**


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: This chapter coming up is pretty sappy. I had a guest reviewer point out that Mary and Marshall are playing with fire by surprising Norah, and I agree. In fact, I think it would be more realistic to have them consult her first, but I am a sucker for hokey surprise scenes. I definitely sacrifice what would be in character sometimes just to write something corny. ;)**

XXX

Marshall was a man who was deeply fond of life's little unexpected moments – specifically the sweet, blissful ones. They were the ones you wished you had a camera for, and yet they were also the ones you could never see coming. You would have to rely on your own head and heart to bring the memories to the forefront at a later date – the sights, the sounds, the smells; you wouldn't want to forget a single detail. It was one of the things that made him so different from Mary. He relished spontaneity; she saw it as opportunity for danger. Nothing was ever as good as it seemed.

Even so, he hoped the pair of them were manufacturing an out of the blue occurrence that would do nothing but bring a smile to Norah's face. It was a well known fact that Mary believed you couldn't construct a true surprise, that because she and Marshall were behind the scheme to introduce a new friend into their home, it wasn't really a surprise at all. The only true shocking moments, to her, were those where life just handed you exactly what you needed – no tinkering behind the scenes required. But, because those occasions were so rare, her husband could see why she didn't put a lot of stock into orchestrated bombshells, whether glorious or dreadful.

But, she couldn't dampen his spirits for anything, and when he walked in the house that afternoon with Norah right behind him, he could barely contain his excitement at what he was about to reveal. She had-had so many adverse shocks as of late, that he longed to give her a more positive one.

Robyn had been dropped off at ballet class, and Brandi had yet to return with Max and Alice. But, knowing of the plan, she had probably detoured on the way home from school in order to give Norah her moment in the sun. That meant the Mann-Shannon abode was quiet when step-father and daughter entered the kitchen; even Mary was nowhere in sight.

"So, you haven't told me…" Marshall wanted to start with everyday discussion, so as not to tip Norah off. "How was your weekend? Surely there were one or two bursts of fun you can expound upon…"

Not amused, Norah rolled her eyes and leaned with her back against the cabinets, shoulder bag having been dumped on the island in its usual place. She might really detest Mark and Jill these days, but that never stopped her from talking about them.

"Dad took me to see the new house."

Marshall wasn't expecting this, but he didn't waste time questioning her about it, "Oh?"

"Yeah," she shrugged, casting off the visit, not wanting him to think she was particularly affected by it. "It's kind of nice – a lot bigger than the one he lives in now."

Now, the man's ears were definitely perked. Could it be that she was finally starting to come to terms with her situation? She sounded, dare he say, hopeful.

"Where is it?" Marshall asked, trying not to appear too fanatical for information.

"By the elementary school," she reported while he went to the fridge and retrieved a can of Sprite, which he passed into her hands without comment. Popping the tab, she took a long slurp before she continued. "You can see it from the backyard."

"The school?"

"Yup," a swallow. "When Alice goes over there, she'll go nuts. If you climb over the back fence and across the field, you can get to the playground."

"Talk about a prime location," Marshall mused. "Your dad and Jill must be thinking ahead."

"To what?"

"Well…" things had been moving along swimmingly, and he didn't want to bring up a sore subject. Delicately, he pressed on, "What with Jill teaching there, she must want to be close by. And, if she's _that_ close, then they can send the baby to school there down the line. Convenience and all…"

As his words tailed away, he allowed Norah to digest what he'd said for a minute. Anything having to do with her impending sibling was a way to get under her skin, but more than that, he imagined it was occurring to her just how much thought Mark was putting into what would be a brand new life.

Currently, he lived in a two-bedroom house on the outskirts on Albuquerque; when Norah had been in grade school, it had taken him almost twenty minutes to get her there. During the early days when it had been just him and his daughter, they'd had more than enough room, but adding a third person, even a small one, had to have made the living quarters cramped. But, here he was, rectifying that anomaly by making sure there was more than enough elbow-room by the time the newest member of the family arrived.

What had been scraping and scrounging with Norah was thoughtful, deliberate planning with Jill's baby. Marshall wondered vaguely if Norah looked at it that way. He sure hoped not.

"It has two floors," she spit out randomly.

"Hmm…" Marshall hummed, unsure what he was supposed to say to this.

"There's a whole separate kitchen in the basement."

"Wow," he meant that; he'd had no idea Mark's solar panel business was so booming; it had obviously earned him enough to cash in on a place like this. "Did you get to see your bedroom?"

"Yeah, but there's people still living there, so I couldn't picture it very well."

"I see."

"Some little kid is in there now. He has racecar wallpaper," she scrunched up her nose at the thought. "I asked dad if we could get rid of that, and he said he'd figure it out. The room the baby is going in is already a nursery; it has a rabbit border and yellow walls."

"And, my guess is, you weren't into taking that space."

"It's way smaller than the other room," she informed him. "But, of course, Mark and Jill get the _biggest_ bedroom – the one with the _bathroom_ ," it was obvious she was disgruntled by this, but not really disappointed; she was old enough to know the adults shared the master, no questions asked.

"But, it sounds like it wasn't as bad as all that…" Marshall offered optimistically. "It'll be beneficial for everyone to have a wider area to roam around in. Mom will want to hear all about it when you get the chance."

Norah frowned, "Well, I don't _need_ anything larger – not when it's just me and I don't ever have friends over." And then, "Where is mom, anyway?"

Ah, the perfect segue. Marshall really was good, if he did say so himself; he had half a mind to pat himself on the back for conducting such a brilliant transition. For, he was certain Mary was in the yard keeping an eye on their lively little buddy – the very reason Norah might want a more open space when it came to living at her dad's. Adding a dog to the mix in the present cupboard Mark lived in might only make everyone more uptight. But, that residence wasn't going to be their home much longer, and there would be a playground just a stone's throw away for Norah to give her pet the freedom to play.

"I think mom's in the back…" he threw his thumb over his shoulder, deciding not to give even the minimalist hint that he was concealing something.

Norah was visibly perplexed, "Why?" Mary was not exactly a great outdoorsman.

"Why don't we go see?" he proposed lightly. "Bring your drink; it's a warm day. You want a snack too?"

"No…"

And, as she followed the chief across the kitchen, the look on her face indicated that she knew there was something fishy going on. Like her mother, she immediately assumed it was something unfavorable, something she wouldn't like. Marshall could only pray it would make the result that much more wonderful when she realized it wasn't something akin to a blow to the head.

Pulling the deck door aside and then the screeching screen on it's rough runners, Marshall saw Norah out onto the deck where Mary was sitting in a lawn chair, aviator sunglasses perched on her nose. He scanned the grass quickly, but Freckles, as he would likely not be known for much longer, wasn't in view. Marshall surmised he must be romping around behind the broken-down, rotting swing set. Any minute now, he would show his face and the jig would be up.

"Hey, Bug…" Mary greeted them when she heard the door, tossing the book she'd been scanning onto the patio table with its waterlogged umbrella. "How's it going?"

"Okay…" as Norah couldn't immediately discern anything unusual, she dropped her suspicion and slipped into the other free chair at the table. "Where's Alice?" this was something she hadn't asked Marshall, but now that she saw she wasn't with their mother, it stood to reason she would want to know what had become of her.

"Brandi went to get her," Mary said. "I think she was going to take she and Max to the library and then get Robyn from ballet."

"Well, why didn't I get to go?" she'd been aloof seconds before, but now she was readying herself for a fight. "Didn't anyone think I might want to come? I haven't been to the library in awhile, and you said that Marshall and I could look for the Anne Frank book…"

But, before she could build momentum too quickly, the rise in her voice attracted the secret being among them, for which Marshall was grateful. Having Norah become too acerbic when they sprung this on her might somehow taint the moment, but it appeared that wasn't something they needed to worry about.

With a vigorous bark, their German shorthaired pointer came dashing between the two, sad little swings no one used anymore, sending them pinging in opposite directions as he tore through the grass. Once he saw there was a human he had not yet been introduced to, he gave several more woofs, long nose jutting toward the sky. His hips didn't slow him down this time and he took the two deck steps in a single leap, sniffing Norah's shoes most enthusiastically.

Norah herself looked nothing short of stunned, and didn't immediately pick up on the smirk Marshall was trying to quench, or the way that Mary veiled herself behind her sunglasses so as not to give her expression away. The girl's head swung from one parent to the other as though on a wobbly spring; she couldn't understand why they weren't reacting to the presence of a stray dog meandering through their yard without a care in the world. If he really were a mutt from down the road, Norah knew as well as anyone that Mary would've been having a fit.

But, the teenager wasn't willing to articulate all her anticipation just yet, and when she finally spoke, her voice came in breathy, curious gasps.

"Oh my gosh…!" even in her shock, the joy was evident; the corners of her mouth twitched.

Marshall thought it was telling she did not exclaim something more suited to her current vernacular, such as, "Holy crap!" He watched affectionately as she stooped to her knees and allowed the boy to lick her fingers, but he was still more interested in her scent and his nose went on overdrive when inspecting her flesh.

"Who is he?" she blinked up at her step-father, indisputable wondering and wishing written all over her face. "Where did he come from? Who does he belong to?"

Before either the chief or the inspector could answer, the dog gave a great snort in Norah's ear, which undoubtedly tickled. She giggled raucously and scratched him appreciatively on his soft ears. Without even looking, the man knew that Mary's heart had both soared and broke hearing her daughter laugh like that – so unadulterated, so pure.

"He's so sweet…" she murmured, hands wrapping automatically around his neck. "Did someone lose him? Do you know who he belongs to?"

It was with the repetition of the previous question that told Mary they couldn't stall anymore, but she was growing more anxious to let loose by the second. The way Norah was taking to the dog almost on the spot was so enchanting that she almost wanted to shed a tear over it, though she knew she wouldn't. It seemed Marshall had known what he was talking about. All it took was a little love.

And so, Mary pushed her sunglasses up into her hair, showing off her green eyes, the sunshine lighting her honey locks and causing them to glimmer.

"He…he belongs to you, Bug," she whispered. "Marshall and I got him for you."

What had started out as nothing but minimal amusement suddenly turned to open-mouthed disbelief in a matter of seconds. Norah clearly couldn't fathom what she was hearing, and she looked at her pal a little more closely with the revelation, into his big, chocolate eyes, down to his pretty speckled coat. One hand ran along his back, feeling the coarseness of his fur beneath the pads of her fingers; she even gripped his cropped stub of a tail briefly before letting go.

When she could speak, she looked earnestly up at her mother and her man, and Mary saw her gulp. It might not be the woman who cried, but she could safely say that if Norah allowed any tears to escape, they would be the first happy ones she had ever cried.

"He…he's mine?" she murmured, as if talking too loudly would make it untrue. "But…" There was something she couldn't wrap her brain around, and it came in the form of a single word. "…Why?"

It probably would've been better if Marshall had taken care of this, as he was more lyrical, but Mary felt, unexplainably, that Norah was asking her.

"Because you're a big girl now…" with a shrug, she made the term sound appropriately ridiculing, not the way she used it to coerce Alice into doing what she'd been told. "And, you're a _good_ girl…" this was more truthful, and she bore right into Norah's dark eyes as she said it. "And you don't ask for much. Everybody needs a friend, right?"

This brought to the surface a much stickier subject, which was Norah's frayed social life, but the inspector felt confident that it wouldn't wreck anything – not today. Her child had wanted to know the basis for such a big decision, and it was only fair she got a candid one. She was clearly bemused beyond comprehension that someone had gone out of their way like this just for her – and for her alone.

"But…but…he…" apparently, the incredulity was still all too real. "I mean…he…he's not _just_ mine. He's for everyone – you and Marshall and Alice…"

Mary shook her head slowly, "He's for you – so long as you can pitch in and help take care of him," she amended. "He can even go back and forth with you to dad's, if you'd like him to."

This, if nothing else, sealed the deal. Being sworn to that the depressing trips to her father's house with his budding bride and baby were now going to be more tolerable must've convinced her this level of kindness was for real. To know that she now had an escort, a beast to snooze at her feet and cuddle her on the sofa no matter whose home she was in, was paramount.

With an honest-to-goodness smile, teeth gleaming, she turned to Mary one more time, wanting to close every gap there was to be had.

"Really? I can take him to dad's?" her timbre warbled with censored merriment. "Dad and Jill are okay with that?"

"He said he was," Mary promised. And, deciding she was through with the hokey gaiety, "Now, if you don't hurry up and give this thing a name, I'm going to pull my hair out. Freckles is not going to fly…"

Norah was all over that, "I can name him too?!"

And then she bounded onto the balls of her feet, and Mary knew what she was going to do before it happened.

"Thank-you, mom! Thank-you…!"

A huge part of her welcomed what was coming, longed to feel her little girl pressed deep in her arms, safe and warm and, above all else, cheerful. But, as she watched Norah come at her with an open embrace, cheeks bursting with pink, so overwhelmed she could hardly stand still, she stopped her with a clap on her shoulder. This wasn't her victory lap, and Mary would never take credit she hadn't earned.

"Don't thank me…" she said it benevolently and nodded across the deck. "It wasn't my idea. It was Marshall's."

Like any thirteen-year-old, this had Norah abandoning her previous gratitude in a flash. She took Mary at her word and switched gears, all-but hurling herself at Marshall, who could only smile, and didn't find time to correct his wife and say it had been a joint decision.

"I love you, Marshall…" she threw her arms around his waist and he smoothed her hair in that paternal way of his. "Thank-you. Thank-you so much."

"You're welcome, champ," he projected softly. "It was my pleasure."

For his own benefit, Mary guessed, he even added an extra squeeze to her bones, like he used to do when she was little. If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought he might throw away all his inhibitions and lift her off the ground, where she could stay aloft on his hips for as long as his arms stayed strong. But, it had been a long time since she'd been small enough to do that, although Mary hadn't realized until just now how much she missed Norah being that size. She wondered if Norah missed it too.

But, if she was yearning for anything deep down, she definitely wasn't thinking about it just now. Leaving her mother in the rearview, she peeled herself free from Marshall's grasp and looked down at her dog with ecstasy sparkling in every inch of her brown eyes.

"What do you think I should name him?"

With nary a word about Freckles, Marshall launched right in; it was as though Mary was no longer present, but that was fine with her. She adored watching the two of them put their heads together like the dorks they were.

"Well, I was deliberating on that very thing…" he rattled off avidly, azure orbs dancing in his long, angular face. "We could go with something historical – maybe even a literary reference. Any thoughts?"

Norah dropped back to the floor of the deck, and Marshall wasn't far behind, both of them nestling the canine and giving into his contended moans when his ears were rubbed.

"I don't know…" the girl worked her mouth side-to-side in her contemplation. "I haven't read as many books as you; I don't want to call him 'Tremain' or anything…"

"No, I agree; that is a bit feeble for a strapping boy like him – and too dated, if you don't mind my saying so…" it was clear Mary didn't belong on this conversation, but solely on the sidelines, which was how she preferred it. "I was thinking perhaps something from another classic work – Pip, taken from 'Great Expectations…'"

The seventh grader wasn't sold on this, "I don't think so," she turned him down. "He doesn't look like a Pip."

"Fair enough, fair enough…" Marshall paused momentarily to retrieve a chew toy he had picked up earlier, holding it out for the dog to gnaw; it made a grating squeaking sound, and Mary knew it would be best to keep it outside. "Maybe Caesar? I love a nod to Shakespeare wherever I can find one…"

"I haven't even read Julius Caesar," Norah reminded him. "The only Shakespeare I've looked at is 'Romeo and Juliet' and there's no way I'm calling him Romeo…"

"Then maybe we should lean toward the more historical side of things…" patting the boy's head approvingly when he took to the toy and not anyone's fingers. "What'd you say you're learning about in social studies?"

"We just started World War One," she replied. "We've been talking about the army bases and how the soldiers had to train before they went off to war…"

"Now, that is ripe for the picking," Marshall even snapped his fingers; he was so alight with prospects. "Think of all the leaders with their bygone monikers – Ferdinand, Lionel, Herbert…"

None of these sounded right to Mary, but Norah had suddenly rebounded off the ground as though she'd been electrocuted; everything on her face screamed, 'epiphany' and she wasn't going to let Marshall get ahead of her.

"I know! I know! I know!"

She really resembled Alice when she became animated; her mother had never noticed such a thing before. They were so dissimilar, such polar opposites both in looks and in personality, that she had always believed they had almost nothing in common. But, the picture of success in her older daughter's flushed cheeks, even the superior, almost arrogant flicker in her eyes was exactly like Alice, so much so it was almost scary.

"I've got it – I know!"

"What?" Marshall was as eager as she was.

"Knox!"

Confusion passed in his features momentarily, probably because 'Knox' was not the name of any general that he knew, but then his intelligence caught up with him.

"As in, Fort Knox?"

"Yeah!" she exclaimed. "We read about it a few days ago! I guess it existed in the Civil War too, and they didn't actually name it Fort Knox until later and it was used in World War Two too…" she always became scatterbrained when she got ahead of herself, but Mary welcomed it this time. "It's in Kentucky…"

"That it is…"

"It sounds so cool; after we read about it, I really wanted to go there, but it's far away…"

"We should sometime," the man offered up at once. "But, for now…" his eyes swiveled to the being between them, working on tearing his new toy to shreds. "Does he strike you as a Knox?"

There was no thinking twice, "Yeah! I want to call him Knox! Don't you think he looks like one?"

"I do if you do."

"Okay…"

"Well, then Knox it is!"

And, he glanced up at his partner as though for confirmation. She nodded politely, knowing that anything would've been better than Freckles, and secretly enjoying that her girl and beloved step-father and been the ones to cook up this title. It had the two of them written all over it – the throwback, the allusion to yesteryear; only a duo of nerds like them would've been able to come up with such a thing.

And, for her own, personal reasons, Mary was drawn to this choice because of one simple letter. When Max had been born, Jinx had gushed that they would be buddies because of the magic 'x' on the end of their names.

It seemed, here on earth or in heaven above, Jinx's quirky influence was still curdling beneath the exterior. Mary couldn't find fault with that.

"Hey…" Marshall suddenly tapped Norah's arm in the midst of her snuggling Knox. "No matter what mom says, this wasn't all my doing. She deserves a few accolades too."

Mary might've known he'd get there, even as she'd attempted to be modest, but the thousand-watt smile her teenager fed her was worth admitting she'd had a hand in the rescuing of Knox.

"I love him, mom…" she avowed all-but solemnly. "Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you."

"Don't mention it, Bug," she answered with a hunch of her shoulders. "If you're happy, then I'm happy too."

XXX

 **A/N: I really have no idea where I came up with the name Knox and hopefully I have the history right – I tried!**


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: Another somewhat slipshod chapter – filler is always hard for me.**

XXX

For the first time in what felt like ages, Norah completed her homework that night without complaint – sitting cross-legged at the coffee table, Knox scattering her papers with all his avid snuffling. She didn't seem to mind in the least, and he had several other entertainments to keep him occupied as it was. Brandi, Robyn, and Max were over, as Peter was working late, and Knox was delighted by all the activity.

Alice, Mary was pleased to find, found the dog to be a novel addition, and had gushed appropriately at the onset, but lost interest quickly. Her attention span wasn't long enough to spend inordinate amounts of time absorbing Knox in commotion. She was content to watch him gambol around while she did her own thing, sometimes stooping to plant wet kisses on his face or to tug on his collar, at which point Marshall had to remind her he was not a toy.

The only one who did not seem enthralled by the newest constituent of their gang was Max. Mary might've expected this, but it still bothered her to see him inching away every time Knox came close, as though afraid to get his fingers crunched or his leg taken off.

Finally, with the girls safely out of earshot in the living room, his aunt asked him what the trouble was.

"He really won't hurt you, bud…" she promised; she might not be that acquainted with the dog, but she still felt comfortable assuming he was not feral. "Don't be scared of him…"

But, Max did not move from where he was pressed up against the kitchen cabinets, Mary opposite him leaning against the island. Knox was particularly interested in the fruit roll up clutched in the boy's hand. If Max wasn't careful, his clamped palm was going to be forced open by the dog's nose alone.

"What if he bites me?" the child whispered, crystal blue eyes larger than ever without his glasses to hide them. "He was playing with that bone earlier and he tore a whole bunch of it off with just his teeth…"

"But, he knows you're not a bone," Mary insisted, surprising herself by thinking a canine would possess that kind of intelligence. "You're a person. He just wants to say hello."

She, of all people, should not be trying to sell the advantages of this creature to anyone, but Norah's reaction must've had her turning over a new leaf. And, in any event, she did not want Max to be terrified to set foot in the house.

"I don't like dogs…" he said it so quietly it was as though he thought it was an indecent thing to mention. "They can't talk, so they can't tell you what they're thinking. I like to know what people are thinking."

This struck the woman as logical, and she thought it might be one of the reasons she had-had an aversion to pets for so long – to hell with Marshall's theory about the unconditional love. To make the boy feel a little better, she backed him up.

"Well, you're preaching to the choir on that one," vaguely, she wondered if he knew what that meant, but decided he could glean the general idea. "Drives me crazy when I can't figure someone out. But, really…"

Calling an arrest to Knox's now somewhat offensive sniffing, for he was headed in the direction of Max's crotch, she took hold of his collar and guided him away. Once she was sure she had a good grip, she pushed his butt toward the linoleum so he would sit down. They'd all been too preoccupied to determine if he actually knew such a command yet, but it didn't matter at the moment.

"Come on, you…"

She was talking to the pointer, but Max must've thought she was talking to him, because he gingerly stepped away from the cupboards, still clinging to his fruit roll up as though fearful it was going to be stolen.

"Come down here where he can see you," this time, her words were directed at her nephew, and she wasn't sure if he was loosening up or if he knew Mary well enough to know that disobeying would be worse than whatever Knox would give him. "Just pet him; he likes it right behind his ears…"

But, the child wouldn't budge. He just knelt there, looking distinctly uncomfortable, Knox struggling fiercely to get free, which probably wasn't helping matters. When she saw that Max couldn't be coerced, she took a different tack, bold as it might have been.

"Well, then he can check you out…"

Without warning, she released the strap around the canine's neck and he immediately threw himself toward the nine-year-old, attacking him with raucous licking. Unfortunately, Mary's gung-ho method didn't work. Knox was content, but Max whimpered, and the blonde was startled to see that he had tears in his eyes. If she listened hard enough, she could likely hear his heart pounding in his chest; she was going to give him a stroke before he even reached fourth grade.

"Max…" his aunt's voice was gentle, much gentler than it usually was. "He's not going to maim you, I swear…"

It was possible she'd wanted him to laugh with her spin on the phrasing, but it looked like he wanted nothing more than to bolt from the premises. Instead, Mary gripped his elbow and, not caring how babyish he might feel, pulled him toward her and settled him on her lap, so that he was sitting in the bowl created by her crossed legs.

He was really too big, rather than too old, to be held as such, because he was growing taller by the day – come next year, he would be a regular beanpole, just like Marshall. But, she instantly felt him relax as she wrapped her arms around his chest, although he still recoiled when Knox tried to jump right in with them.

"It's okay…" she murmured soothingly. "It's okay; let him smell you…give him your hand; I won't let him hurt you…"

"He doesn't like me…" Max squirmed.

"Try first…" she urged. "Come on…"

Coaxingly, she forced one hand out from where it was pressed against the boy's chest and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Slowly, she offered the bait to Knox; after several seconds, the sniffing ceased and the licking began. From Max's hand he went to his face and covered it in a series of kisses as well, dampening his nose and cheeks; even his eyelashes shone with wetness.

"No…no…"

"You're fine…"

"It…it…it…"

Mary half-expected him to squeal that it hurt, but after so much stammering, he uttered nothing but the truth.

"It…it tickles!"

This was followed by shivers that turned into giggles, so that he was a warm, wiggly bundle in Mary's arms, not so different from a puppy himself.

"I…I can't breathe…!" he gasped between licks, but it couldn't have been plainer that his fear had been vanquished, as each word was punctuated by a laugh. "Does…doesn't he ever stop…?"

"Not when he gets going…" Mary conceded. But, then she knew she had to call the beast off, for he did seem to be in danger of obstructing Max's oxygen with his fanatical slobbering. "Come on, you sack of fleas…" said with minor affection. "Cease and desist, will you?"

With a light push, she was able to stagger Knox to the side, where he gave an ungainly straddle on his weak hips. Recovering quickly, he was up in a matter of seconds and, finished with Max, frolicking off into the living room to see what else he could demolish.

Max, meanwhile, was mopping up his face, ridding it of slickness, breathless from both pent up terror as well as relief. Mary had rarely seen him so natural, not worried about who was watching him or how he might be perceived – he'd been as shy as they came for as long as she'd known him. His behavior reminded her of her own from the studio that afternoon – shrugging off his dilemma, singing like no one was listening.

But, it didn't take him long to regain consciousness, so to speak, and he instantly scooted out of Mary's lap once he realized where he was, but remained on the floor so that they were facing one another.

"See, you didn't even break a nail," the woman teased as she leaned back on her haunches. "Doesn't hurt to live a little, moppet."

A reluctant grin escaped at the mention of his old nickname, and his skin was tinged with pink underneath the bright kitchen lights.

"Why do they act like that?" he was back to his soft, restrained voice.

"Like what?" Mary prodded.

"Like…I don't know…" he couldn't find the phrasing he was looking for, tilting his head as though hoping to locate inspiration in the ceiling. "He doesn't even know me, but he thinks I'm his friend."

"Knox?"

"Yeah."

"Well…" she swallowed. "Dogs sense things. Marshall says they're sometimes better judges of character than people are." With a clipped guffaw, "You believe that?"

Max just shrugged; he must've been able to tell that his aunt wasn't quite finished spewing her hypothesis.

"I don't know that I buy into that malarkey, pal, but there does seem to be some kind of chip in their brain that tells them which way to swing…" she figured. "They grovel if they know someone's decent and they growl if they realize someone's not."

"All dogs?"

"Most of them, I guess," she couldn't claim to be an expert on this. "When push comes to shove, they seem to know how to protect the home front."

This reminded her of Oscar who, while certainly not her favorite roommate, had known how to bare his teeth or flash his claws if things got dicey. He'd been faithful to Mary even though she'd been nothing but crass with him, and he'd managed to scout out the lowlife who had tried to accost her high school witness at a choir concert. Whatever his unflattering qualities, when the chips were down, he came up swinging every time.

But, her description must've put Max in mind of something else, and the connection startled Mary because it was such a lovely compliment.

"Kind of like you."

Being compared to a dog didn't thrill her, but she knew her nephew was being sweet, and as it was most unlike him to bestow anyone with his opinion, she took it for what it was.

"You think that's what I do?" she ventured, not wanting him to feel humiliated if she fawned on his kindness. "Snap at the ankles of people who defy me and kiss up to the others?"

It was predictable that Max didn't answer, merely giggled and hunched his shoulders again, but she took that as a sound, 'yes.' And, in any case, their conversation was interrupted when Robyn came tromping in, heaving a brown cardboard box onto the island above Mary's head. A theatrical huff came with it, and even from her spot on the floor, Mary could see her blow her bangs out of her face in frustration.

"Hey…" reaching over and patting Max's knee. "Go ask Marshall if you can go a round in one of those _heinous_ video games you like before you guys take off for the night…" insulting his pastime was a guaranteed ticket to get him to smile. "Alice can play too if she's done with her homework…"

At Mary's word, Max unfolded himself and went sauntering back into the living room, no longer taking care to steer clear of Knox, who seemed to have found an abandoned flip flop of Alice's and was chewing it into foam. Half-heartedly, she was attempting to get it away from him, but it was too small and she couldn't be bothered for long. Mary was pleased to see that Norah was grinning in between scrawls on her math paper.

This left Mary alone with her niece, and after putting out one fire with Max, she decided she would try her hand at another, because Robyn was looking increasingly woebegone. Norah's newfound jolliness had her in a much better place; the inspector was feeling particularly helpful this evening.

"What's with you?" she proposed casually of Robyn, who was leaning on one elbow and staring darkly at the box, which was fairly dusty.

"Nothing," she groused.

"I know 'nothing' from 'nothing' and, trust me; I can tell this isn't 'nothing.'"

Mary was aware of how stupid she sounded, and the slow look of disgust that Robyn shot her confirmed it, a glance that said without words that she was being frightfully weird – a death sentence among middle school children. But, as Mary had become used to Norah's rages, she had learned to designate when her daughter was replying with 'nothing' to cover something up, or because there really was very little to report. In Robyn's case, she knew it was the former.

"What?" the girl was wide-eyed with her lip turned up on one corner. "Was I supposed to understand that?"

"I've been living with Marshall too long," the elder would chalk it up to that. "Anyway. What's with the scowling mug?" drawing her finger up and down Robyn's form. "You look like you swallowed a lemon."

"Well, I didn't."

"It's an expression."

With a hugely dramatic sigh, "I was just looking for that video I was going to show Alice, but I still can't find it."

"The dancing one?" Mary dimly remembered Marshall mentioning this a few days before.

"Yeah," Robyn confirmed dispiritedly. "Alice keeps saying she wants to try ballet, but she won't go at Jinx's studio because of Darcy."

"Ah, yes…" the woman breathed, craning her neck in a thoughtful, meditative gesture, feeling a certain fondness upon hearing her niece still refer to the place as 'Jinx's studio.' "Who would want to endure the horror that is Darcy? Rigidity, pointing fingers – not to mention toes – and bellowing orders like a drill sergeant." Casting Robyn inclined eyebrows, "Sign me up ASAP," and not without her trademark sarcasm.

"Darcy isn't that bad," the other insisted, which was similar to what the aunt had told Lia, funnily enough. "But, I told Alice that if she really wanted to learn, I could teach her. Only, she's not very patient…"

"Alice?" Mary snorted. "Heh. You don't say?"

The sixth grader disregarded this, "I've tried teaching her the positions, but she keeps saying she just wants to 'dance.' I told her that you have to learn the basics first, but she won't listen."

It was the first time Mary had ever heard Robyn speak even slightly unkindly toward her younger cousin, whom she tended to dote on because the brunette worshipped the ground she walked on. And, the inspector was about to ask what Alice's knack for impatience had to do with this fated DVD they'd been looking for, but the child beat her to the punch.

"I thought if she could see the recording from my first recital – the one that Jinx taped – then she could see what she might get to do if she learns everything she's supposed to learn first," she explained in a rush. "I got to be a bunny in my first show; I had lines and everything. If I could just show her…"

Here, her justifications floated away, like she realized she would only be running in circles if she tried to elucidate any further. And, in spite of how minor Mary believed this conundrum to be, she could tell that its severity was real to Robyn. She was leaning on the island with her chin in her hand, looking sad and defeated, blinking her long eyelashes not for show this time, but out of reflection.

Watching her, Mary tried to wrack her brains for a place she thought the lost video might have gotten to, wondering with a sinking feeling in her gut if it had gotten thrown out when Jinx had died. Her mother hadn't kept much in her office at the studio, but that wasn't to say it hadn't gotten tossed in a garbage sack accidentally. If she thought Robyn only wanted this DVD to brag and to boast, she'd have told her to forget it. But, she thought it went even beyond Alice. Robyn, more than any of the other kids, had-had the strongest connection to her late grandmother. She wanted to carry on her legacy.

"Why do you think it's so important to teach her, babe?" she eventually ventured. "I mean, no offense, but Alice kind of has the attention span of a gnat. She might forget about ballet in another day or two, especially with Halloween on the way…"

"I just do," Robyn stated simply. And then, validating Mary's theory, "I feel like Jinx would've wanted her to learn."

"Well, you know, she did try – once upon a time," Mary informed her. "When she was about three, and it was never her style."

"But, she's older now," the other argued. "And, Jinx always said that ballet gives you discipline – Darcy says that too, actually. Don't you think that Alice…?"

She seemed to realize what she was about to say a split second before it came out her mouth, and immediately gathered that Mary would find the words insulting, as the first grader was her daughter. But, there were some things you couldn't deny, and she didn't need Robyn feeling guilty on top of everything else.

"Could use some discipline?" the inspector finished the sentence for her.

Rather than work on the best line of defense, the girl just shrugged sheepishly. But, regardless of the diva traits that had always been prevalent in Robyn, her obsession with making sure her little cousin walked the straight and narrow reminded Mary a little too much of her own childhood and the way she had taken care of Brandi for so many years. As Norah always had her claws out where Alice was concerned, it seemed Robyn had taken up the job of playing mother hen.

Mary couldn't be sure this was a culprit, but decided to put a stipulation on the table just to make sure.

"You know Alice isn't your responsibility, don't you?" it came out more like a demand, but in some ways, that was fitting. "If she goes off the rails, it's not down to you to take the blame."

"I didn't think it was; I just thought…"

"And, if she's _going_ to run amok, ballet isn't going to help anything," it was a dark, dismal view, but it was the truth. "She's growing up, babe. She'll start to, you know…" She couldn't be certain if this was what Robyn was really worried about, but she said it anyway. "…Branch out."

That might just be the crux of it, however. Yes, it was about Jinx and her wishes, not to mention a little girl who had always been all about the performance wanting to mold a mini-me in her own image. But, Alice had tailed around after Robyn her entire life, and now that she was getting older, she was expanding her horizons. With time, she might not need a mentor so much anymore.

And, if Robyn was realizing it, that had to be hard – and equally as difficult not to hang on tight to the past with two hands. It seemed Norah wasn't the only who was concerned about the days flashing by too quickly.

"The best you can do for her, Rob…" Mary continued when her niece gave no answer, just looked bedraggled with her big doe eyes. "…Is _show_ her, instead of _tell_ her, what it means to be grown up. You get me?"

By the look on her face, she did, but it wasn't easy to accept. Trying to stay a role model without the proverbial cute puppy following after you, setting an example all on your own, was heady stuff.

"I still want to show her the video," the middle schooler persisted in a small voice. "She might still want to see it. She might like ballet if she saw how fun it can be."

Baby steps. The resigned tone of her voice convinced Mary she wasn't hanging on quite so fiercely, but wasn't going to relinquish her grip yet. The aunt could live with that.

"Then, I'd keep looking," she suggested, patting the musty, dusty box between them. "And, if you don't find what you're looking for, you might unearth something else. You never know what's hiding in the archives."

"Yeah…" Robyn chuckled. "Right."

But, before she could completely lift the container down for a second peek, Mary's cell phone went off on the counter. Robyn looked at it curiously, but didn't ask questions, and instead continued with her quest. It was hard for Mary to guess who might be on the other end, what with Brandi and Marshall both in the house, but she supposed it could be Stan or even Mark, although it wasn't customary for either to call unless there was an emergency. But, these days, her ex-husband seemed to locate emergencies in his toaster or television. You never could tell.

So, bidding Robyn farewell as she traipsed back to the living room, she snuck a quick look there herself to make sure everything was status quo. Marshall had indeed engaged in video games with Max while Norah still had her head bent over her schoolwork. Knox was watching the match on the TV as though it were riveting, his small brown eyes darting back and forth to track every second of the action. Alice was curled up with Brandi on the sofa and they appeared to be browsing through a book, probably one of the six-year-old's easy readers.

But, Mary ought to have known that even if her life had settled into a comfortable rhythm for only one evening, it couldn't last long – in this case, not even a few hours. Because, when she picked up her cell and glanced at the caller ID, she felt her stomach give an almighty lurch, almost like she was about to be sick. Fortunately, she was able to keep it at bay, but her intestines continued to squirm and her mouth suddenly dried up.

Staring at the little lighted screen for a longer amount of time wouldn't make the name she saw disappear – it would only invite a voicemail she would have to return. And so, she gulped, hoping no one in the next room had picked up on her sudden evasiveness, but they were all too far away. Six tiny letters and an out-of-town area code could prompt an extraordinary amount of unease. Slowly, deliberately, Mary hit the miniature green phone that would connect her to the caller and willed herself to sound natural.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mary," the deep, husky voice was familiar – like Brandi's, but lower and more steady. "It's Lauren."

The Marshal didn't need to be told this, and yet hearing confirmation that it was her half-sister on the other end of the line made it more authentic, somehow. Something she couldn't run from.

"Yeah…I, um…" so much for sounding cool. "I saw that it was you. What…what's up?" aloofness wasn't overtaking her either.

"Not a lot," Mary had forgotten how bored Lauren sounded so much of the time, though she wasn't actually as uninterested as her timbre would indicate. "What about you?"

It was just like her to stop the conversation before it could even start. This didn't make Mary angry, exactly, but more on her guard. Scott had always been like Brandi and that left the elder Shannon to assume that Lauren was more similar to her. There was still another Griffin out there that she'd never shaken hands with, let alone spoken to. Could she be a combination of Mary and Brandi?

But, Lauren's ability to control the discussion definitely meant she had roots to Mary. The inspector was the one who forever, one hundred percent of the time, wanted to be the one at the command. Lauren wasn't giving her the opportunity.

"Not much here either," she replied, which was the furthest thing from the truth, but she didn't want to get into specifics with James' other daughter before she knew what she wanted. "You just…calling to chat, or…?"

She knew this couldn't be it, because neither she nor Lauren ever rang each other up just to shoot the breeze. Mary couldn't even remember the last time she'd talked to her. There had been one or two times after James had died, but that was twelve years ago. Had it really been that long?

"Well, I just thought I would check in. I'm going to be passing through Albuquerque at the end of the week and I wondered if maybe you wanted to get together."

She presented this as flatly and calmly as she presented just about anything, like she frequently stopped in New Mexico even though she lived nowhere near the southwest. But, her casual detachment didn't have much effect on Mary, who tried not to look like she'd just been asked to take a swan dive off the golden gate bridge.

What little she knew about Lauren didn't indicate she would be popping in to cause trouble. She mostly kept her head down and avoided the Shannons, and they did the same in return. Since Scott had passed away, the lines of communication had been pretty much closed, as he had been Brandi's link to their father's world. Mary might not have realized Lauren was her sister during their one meeting, but there had been nothing to dislike about her – once she'd gotten over the notion that she was not, in fact, an agent from the FBI.

And so, there was no reason for her to be suspicious, and yet she was. She was always suspicious.

"Where are you headed?" she proposed without answering the original question.

"Miami."

"What's in Miami?" she couldn't guess, since Scott was no longer there.

"My mother," Lauren supplied, which Mary might've deduced if she weren't so busy internally freaking out. "She's moving into a smaller house – still in Miami – and she needs some help getting packed up and ready to go or she'll never do it."

"Sounds like my mom," Mary noted without thinking.

The other woman did not comment on Jinx. Suddenly, Mary couldn't recall if she'd ever told her long lost sister that Jinx was no longer alive. They'd had more interaction than the pair of them during that one afternoon they'd gotten caught up on the particulars of James' first and second lives.

"But, like I said, I'll be coming through," Lauren reiterated. "I thought it would be nice if we kind of…" For the first time, she hesitated, "Tied up loose ends."

She might've been trying to avoid saying, 'catch up' again, but the inspector wasn't sure what to make of this phrasing. It sounded like Lauren was doing this out of obligation, which wasn't the best invitation, but it was more effort than Mary had made in the last decade. Maybe it was time, despite how she already dreaded the possibility. She'd never met Norah or Alice – or even Robyn and Max. They were her nieces and nephew, technically. The thought was a startling one.

"Yeah…I suppose that would work…" she tried not to sound as if she especially cared one way or the other, much like Lauren. "Do you know when you'll be here?"

"The weekend, probably," she claimed. "I can call again when I'm closer."

"Yeah, a head's up would be good," Mary agreed.

"All righty then."

The words felt familiar on her tongue before Mary spoke them and managed to hang up, trying to decide when she would inform Marshall of what she had just decided.

"All righty then."

XXX

 **A/N: Lauren! I always kind of wished we had seen her on the show at least one more time, maybe at the end when Mary's dad died. Laura Prepon was such a great cast for Mary's and Brandi's sister.**


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N: Plugging along…**

XXX

It wasn't until the next day that Mary found the time or, indeed, the courage, to tell Marshall of the plans she had made with Lauren. Why she was keeping it from him, she couldn't pin down, because knowing Marshall, he would find the whole thing an incredibly healthy step in their relationship. Just thinking about him spewing that line was enough to make her vomit, so that could be why she kept mum. But, there were likely underlying reasons as well.

For one, she had not actually seen Lauren, in the flesh, since the very first time they had met, and she'd had no knowledge of their connection then. They'd spoken on the phone only a handful of times, and while Mary was no longer threatened by the place Lauren had held in James' life, the situation was still awkward. She'd never laid eyes on any of the kids; Mary couldn't even recall if she'd told her about them. For that matter, she didn't have a clue what Lauren's existence was made of either. Was she married now? Did she have children as well? She supposed she was going to find out.

There were more chickens to count come Tuesday morning than just Lauren's looming arrival, anyway. Alice's parent-teacher conference was that evening, with Norah's coming up on Wednesday, and Mary's nerves were already jangling. She had nothing to fear from educators, but between her livewire daughter and her morose one, she didn't foresee positive reports. She could only hope she would be pleasantly surprised.

With all this on her mind, she whiled away the early hours at the house to keep an eye on Knox, not comfortable leaving him on his own when he'd only been theirs for a day. She'd had to assure Norah ad nauseam that he would be taken care of while she was at school, and still it was a wrestling match trying to get her out the door. She was given a reprieve and a break at lunchtime when Marshall came home from the office.

Judging by the color in his cheeks, an autumn chill had definitely seeped into the air, plus he had on a scarf, wound three times around his neck to go with his long winter jacket. Mary thought it was a little early in the season to be busting out what she called his old man's trench coat, but perhaps it had gotten nippier out than she realized. Knox was the one who greeted her husband as he came in, the wife staying where she was at the island, slaving over WITSEC documents as usual.

"Hey there, buddy…" Marshall gave the dog a gentle pat as he loosened his neckwear and tossed it onto the sofa. Calling over the clicking of Knox's nails, "Hi, Mary!"

"Hey…" she waved an absent hand, not bothering to look up.

"'Tis a trifle brisk out there, I must report," he was breathless, unbuttoning his coat and depositing it with the scarf in the couch cushions. "Halloween will be just above freezing if we continue at this rate, especially once the sun goes down."

"Freezing?" Mary was skeptical, giving him a sassy glance by peering out of the top of her glasses. "You don't think you're embellishing just a little? It's two months until Christmas…"

"Is that all?" he mulled over as he came all the way inside, at which point Mary noticed he was carrying two white paper sacks, presumably with their lunch in them. "They'll be playing, 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,' on the radio come Saturday. Mark my words."

"Ugh…" his woman groaned, wagging her head in disgust. "Can't they at least wait until after Thanksgiving before they bust out all the festoons and crap? Like that prickly holly and those ugly-ass purple ornaments they drape all around the mall aren't bad enough." And then, deciding she could slip this in effortlessly, "Like I'll need any more trouble once Saturday rolls around."

She had hoped her cavalier attitude might distract Marshall to the point where her comment filtered into his brain and then right out again – nothing to fixate on. And yet, she should've known better, because the chief lifted himself right onto the stool opposite her, dropping both bags, and dug deeper right away.

"And, what is so special about Saturday?"

"Nothing," she replied quickly, averting her eyes back to her work. "I mean, seriously? By the time we've been through a week with Knox, sat through two parent-teacher conferences, _and_ one of the most obnoxious holidays ever invented, you don't think we'll be DOA come Saturday morning?"

"Ah-ah-ah…" Marshall pointed his best professor finger, bright cobalt eyes alight with curiosity. "An admirable cover up, inspector, and I commend you, but you cannot fool me. Might this have something to do with that stealthy phone call you took last night?"

Why had she married a man smarter than she was? Mary pondered this fact more often than she cared to admit.

"What phone call?" playing dumb was the only offense she had.

"You know very well _what_ phone call," there was a rascally glint in his features as he extracted a curly fry from the depths of one of the bags and popped it into his mouth. "I only have thirty minutes before I am back under Stan's thumb, so spill."

"I thought _you_ were _his_ boss now."

"Mary."

Stalling wasn't going to get her anywhere; he was relentless. She had half a mind to call him on it with a few choice words that would wipe the haughty smirk right off his face. But, there was no sense in beating around the bush; she really didn't have anything to be ashamed of, anyway. She'd agreed to meet Lauren, and now she had to live with whatever everyone else thought about it. She suddenly wondered what Brandi would say when she learned of the development, and if she would want to tag along.

But, leaving that for another day, Mary exhaled slowly and readjusted her frames so they settled more squarely on the bridge of her nose. Marshall's face came into sharper focus, and he looked just as intrigued as ever.

"It was Lauren," she divulged, hopefully with minimal drama. "You know. My…"

"Sister?"

"Half-sister," Mary corrected at once, knowing it was nit-picky and possibly spiteful, but not really caring either. "And, yes. Unless there's some other Lauren you know about that I don't."

"Well, that one would be my first guess," Marshall asserted. "What exactly did you do to warrant a phone call?"

"You mean, what did I do wrong in a past life to earn this as punishment?"

"Something like that."

"She'll be in town soon…" here, Mary peered into the sack Marshall had set before her and fished out a handful of fries of her own, all of which she stuffed into her mouth as an excuse not to speak for a few seconds. When she could do so coherently, "I said I'd see her. That's it."

"How very magnanimous of you."

Mary narrowed her eyes into slits hearing him describe her as such; even though she knew it was a compliment, she found herself taking it as an insult. Maybe it was because she had caved to Lauren's request so quickly, when normally her hackles would've been up and she would've had no problem telling her to keep on driving.

But, before she could run this past Marshall, he toted out the line Mary had known he would – fortunately, she didn't toss her cookies upon hearing it, but it was a tough battle.

"And healthy," he added with the smallest hint of a grin, like he knew his partner was reading his mind. "Very healthy."

"Healthy for who?" Mary snapped irritably. "About as healthy as this lunch you brought me, I'd say."

As if he understood the mention of food, Knox began sniffing somewhat pitifully around her ankles, no doubt smelling the hamburgers that resided even deeper in the sack. Taking one out, Mary unwrapped it, catching the whiff of grease and melted cheese. When she took a bite, she tried to savor the wonderful sourness of the pickles, the hot tang of the onion; it gave her something else to focus on besides Marshall's preaching, which was quickly in full swing.

"I predict there will be no bloodshed," he, too, crackled the wrappings around his bun, but at a more leisurely pace than Mary. "That's healthy, isn't it?"

"It would be, but when it comes to people with ties to my father, you can never be sure that blood won't be spilled."

"Well, call me crazy…" he chomped into his burger and chewed thoughtfully. "Don't _you_ have ties to your father?"

"Not ties like this."

"No?"

" _No_ ," she emphasized, surprised he had the gall to question it. "Am I the one with a gambling addiction?" she was thinking of Scott. "Am I the one that robbed banks for a living? Am _I_ the sister that won't show her face around here?"

"You're losing me…" Marshall admitted with a frown. "It sounds to me like Lauren is very willing to 'show her face around here…'"

"I'm not talking about her; I'm talking about the other one – that one I've never met. I mean, if she's so upstanding, whoever she is, how come she's never contacted me or Brandi?"

"Now, that would be what we refer to as the 'pot calling the kettle black,'" he adored educating her like this; secretly, she suspected he was turned on by the dour face she adopted when he got going on one of his academic rants. "If _you_ had known about Scott and Lauren first, would you have opened the lines of communication?"

Mary did not really need to answer. Marshall would know how she felt even if she lied through her teeth. She'd never had any interest in getting to know Scott; the few times she'd made an effort, it had been for Brandi's sake, not his. And, once Lauren had gone on her merry way, she hadn't seen any need in staying in touch. They barely knew each other. They'd both been deceived by a man they'd thought they knew. What else was there to bond over?

"I rest my case," Marshall concluded when the woman remained tight-lipped. "Perhaps the mysterious third Griffin feels as you did – as you do. Why open the can of worms?"

"Well, for some insane reason, I decided to twist the top off anyway," using his analogy. "I'll count myself lucky if Lauren just shows up, we break bread, have a laugh or two, and have done with it."

"Whatever your motivation for agreeing to an afternoon of chitchat, I commend you," the chief bowed his head and then picked up his napkin in order to wipe the corners of his mouth free of ketchup. "It'll be good for you, it'll be good for Lauren – I think it will be especially advantageous for Norah."

This threw Mary for a loop, as it was an angle she had not considered. Setting her burger aside momentarily with a cautious eye on Knox at her feet, she fixed her husband with an unblinking stare, truly unable to fathom what he had cooked up.

"Norah," she stated blankly. "Who said anything about Norah?"

"Well…" Marshall hedged, clearly having thought Mary would've picked up on his notion, but she hadn't. "…You aren't the only one with a sibling you think you'd be better off without."

So that was it. The verbiage was a little crass for the taller of the two, as he would usually make more of an effort to make it sound like Norah did not wish Mark's new baby weren't on its way. But, the fact of the matter was, she did wish that. And, what with Mary never having expressed any desire to know or become bosom buddies with the children from James' second family, they weren't so different in that way.

But, Mary was taking a step. She was accepting Lauren's arrival with relative grace, and Marshall seemed to think she was doing it to set an example for Norah when the time came for her brother or sister to emerge. The only thing was, such a thought had never even crossed her mind.

"I'm not doing this to build bridges or to teach Norah a lesson or something," she informed Marshall right off the bat. "Whatever happens between her and Mark's kid and what's already happened between me and Lauren and Scott is not the same. She's gonna know about this little urchin from the get-go – not so with me and the Griffins."

"But, whether you planned it that way or not, you're still showing her that giving the unexpected sibling a shot is worth considering."

"I don't remember saying it was worth considering."

"Actions speak louder than words." And, before Mary could give him any more of the latter, "Speaking of, by the way…" he took another hearty bite of his burger and then powered on, waiting for a split second so he was not talking with his mouth full. "I wouldn't be adverse to a little insight on your actions. If you're so against seeing Lauren, why did you give consent?"

It took Mary a moment to come up with a plausible response – no easy task, because she couldn't pinpoint the basis for her concord either. She had more than enough family members to be going on with, and even more people than she knew what to do with that she had to consider family – Mark, Joanna, Jill, and the like. Why add Lauren to the mix? It only cluttered things up, and after the debacle with Raph, integrating new bodies didn't seem the most favorable idea.

But, in her heart of hearts, maybe it was still that unexplainable pull to her childhood that she had never been able to fully let go of. Lauren had not been a part of her youth, it was true, but she still had that irrefutable association with James. Mary did not think about her father nearly as much as she used to; he'd been gone from her life for forty years now, and gone from the planet for over a decade. There was only so much time she could waste languishing over him.

But, James made her think of Jinx, and Jinx was someone she still missed very much, despite how she covered it up. Jinx had known Lauren, however distantly. And, even though her life was constantly punctuated by individuals she looked at as familial, the actual number of people she was related to by blood anymore was very small – Brandi, Norah, and Alice were the extent of it.

Maybe she had been thinking about Norah when she'd fallen on her sword and made a lunch date with her half-sister, but not in the way Marshall was thinking. She, too, longed to hang onto something that was gone – the past. Only, in Norah's case, she wanted to cling because her youth had been so dreamy. Mary did because she'd never had the upbringing she should've.

Those Shannon women, their minds worked in mysterious ways.

"Well, maybe it's because I'm growing up," the blonde teed up when she could not think of a more concise way to vocalize everything she had just deliberated on. "You know, being an adult. She asked, and I didn't run away kicking and screaming. It's about time, huh?"

As Marshall always believed better of Mary than she thought of herself, he looked dubious about her explanation. He could also spot a fibber better than just about anyone else, so obscuring her true intentions was a trick.

"You don't think it's because you're reaching out for companionship?" he was so blunt that she nearly got whiplash, and she didn't waste any time contesting his premise.

"Companionship?" she had to work at eking a scoff into her tone. "When have you ever known me to seek out random members of the human race? Sounds to me like you've been hitting the sauce, chief…"

"This isn't a random member," he reminded her. "This is your sister."

"Half-sister," Mary stressed for the second time, on this occasion with a little more of a bite.

Marshall appeared exasperated, "Is being that specific really necessary?" for the first time in awhile, he sounded disappointed in her. "Is that the way you want Norah to think of Mark's child?"

"That's what this kid will be, whether I say so or not."

"And, what if we'd trained her to think of Alice that way?" he shot back swiftly, and it was like a fist had sunk straight in the shorter's gut. "They're not full siblings either."

Hearing her husband define it as such definitely had the effect he was probably going for. Mary had never once considered allowing Norah to think of Alice as a partial sister. They were _sisters_ , plain and simple. Did she do that because she cared more about Marshall than she did about Mark, and therefore had more desire for them to blend as a family? Or, did she furtively wish for her daughter to be a much bigger person than she was, while she could remain a big, fat hypocrite when it came to Lauren and the nameless, faceless Griffin never-before-encountered?

"That's different," she made herself say it, but her voice was meek.

"Is it?"

"Yes, it is…" she gathered more gumption the longer she stayed on her high horse. "And, you know it. Mark isn't running off and creating a whole new family completely separate from the one he's always had with Norah…"

"He's not?"

"No," it was hard to believe she was taking up for her ex, but she was. "He's including Norah, something my dad _never_ did with me after Lauren and Scott were born…"

"I agree that it isn't exactly the same," Marshall seemed to forget his meal entirely, focusing solely on Mary, wanting to get to the root of the future visit. "And, this interrogation I'm giving you really isn't fair, because I'm actually proud of you for being so open-minded about Lauren."

"Even if you or I can't figure out why that is?"

She said this because she wanted to understand her emotions as much as her man did; she didn't want to be blindsided with unresolved issues when Lauren inevitably showed up. Nor did she want to look like she was trying to be some paragon of virtue, setting the standard for how Norah was supposed to behave when she became a big sister for the second time.

"We don't always know why we do the things we do," Marshall offered, and Mary knew he had something very similar to her recently. "Sometimes our actions are subconscious…"

"Breaking out the Finkel-isms, I see…"

"But, I like to think my earlier speculation has some merit." Not waiting for Mary to ask him to repeat it, "There are hordes of people coming in and out of this house on a daily basis…"

"You can say that again…"

"But, there is something inherently symbolic about being able to sit down with your own flesh and blood," if that was what he wanted to call Lauren. "We've had a lot to sort through lately, and you've told me that it's been tough for you not to have Jinx around…"

"Lauren isn't my mother," Mary cut in. "She's younger than I am. And, besides, if I'm hankering for some bond of DNA so much, there's always Brandi…"

"True enough," he conceded. "But, I don't blame you for latching onto an extra opportunity. And, whether it was your intent or not, it _will_ be good for Norah to see you putting old wounds aside, so to speak."

Apparently, there was no way to sway him from that initiative, and so Mary decided it was best not to try. She didn't have much else to say on the subject; her brain felt tired already just having tried to slog through all of Marshall's perceptions. Thinking about the innermost workings of her mind this much was, in its own way, strenuous. Did it honestly matter what her motivation was for seeing Lauren? Perhaps it really was as simple as having sucked up her pride because it was the right thing to do.

But, she was done thinking about it for the moment, and to shift things onto a hopefully more casual note, she tore off a corner of her hamburger and flipped it to the waiting Knox. He gobbled it up instantly, snapping his jaws and licking around his lips. Unfortunately, the treat only left him wanting more; he whimpered pathetically and wagged his tail, just short of resting his head on Mary's knee.

"You know you're just teaching him to beg, right?" Marshall presented, and while the question was just more teachings, at least it got his thoughts off Lauren.

"Eh, whatever…" she waved this aside as unimportant. "It's not like he's jumping on the table and devouring an entire steak."

"Not _yet_ , anyway," a playful grin.

Glad that they had transitioned to a lighter topic, Mary opted to tackle a third shift – it wasn't high on her list of things to talk about, but anything was better than hashing out the particulars of her helter-skelter relations.

"Who are we gonna have stay with Alice tonight?" she wondered, taking a sip from the straw of the drink she had yet to touch. "Have you asked Joanna?" peeling her lips apart to query further.

"No, but I think Brandi is a safer choice, if she's willing," he said. "Alice tends to pull out all the bells and whistles with Joanna, which rubs Norah the wrong way. No putting on a show with Brandi around – she's seen it all."

"Won't Brandi have Max's conference?"

"Not until Thursday; I checked with her last night," he detailed. "That way she can bring the kids – it'll be nice with everyone here together; we can give Alice a full report from Miss Whitmore when we return."

"When did we become this hub?" Mary groused. "This big gathering place for everyone to come and go as they please? As I recall, we have two kids to worry about, not four, and somehow we're ending up with a quad, plus Brandi and Mark and Jill and, pretty soon, Mark's offspring will be one of the brood as well."

She pretended to be annoyed by all this, even making faces of disgust to match, but Marshall wasn't fooled. Since the summer she had become pregnant with Alice, she had truly taken on the role of both Marshal and mother. That August, she had hardly worked at the office, instead choosing to look after her daughter, niece, and nephew, while Marshall grew into his position as the chief and Brandi got her own retail career off the ground. She might become prickly about the house being stuffed to the breaking limit with kids, but her husband knew she really wouldn't have it any other way.

"Like the Waltons, huh?" he mused boyishly.

"Or the Brady Bunch."

"Leave it to Beaver, maybe?"

"Or those cheesy-ass Tanners from that God awful show set in San Francisco."

This time, Marshall laughed, "I don't think we need to concern ourselves with becoming a walking cliché straight out of a sitcom." And then, "None of those shows have a cutting-edge, sarcasm-wielding law woman as their queen bee."

Mary knew it was expected that she disagree with him, or downplay the image, but she still liked the notion of being tough so much that she decided to concur with him instead.

"Damn straight, doofus."

XXX

 **A/N: XOXO**


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N: On we go!**

XXX

Strictly speaking, Mary was not a fan of elementary schools – she hadn't been as a child, and she wasn't now. They boasted far too many things that she would much rather like to avoid – stilted cheeriness, too bright colors, scads of little kids with runny noses or sticky fingers, the unpleasant smell of runny white glue, and chairs too small to sit in. Mary always felt big, loud, and awkward whenever she'd had to set foot in the school the girls attended. She might've had it made when Norah went to sixth grade, except that was when Alice was starting kindergarten, and thus the process began all over again.

And now, perched stupidly on the edge of a chair that wouldn't even fit Goldilocks, she concealed her wringing hands beneath the tabletop and did her best to look careless and informal. Marshall was at her side, but he was actually embodying an unperturbed persona, unlike his wife, and Alice's teacher sat across from them – Miss Whitmore. Mary had met her on only one another occasion, when school had begun two months earlier. She was fairly young, maybe not yet thirty, although the blonde would venture a guess she was right around there. She had dark, olive skin and inky black hair with almond-shaped eyes to match. She did not seem at all nervous, something Mary couldn't understand.

Did she know the two people before her were US Marshals? That they could pull guns or badges at any second if they didn't like what she said about Alice? Knowing she was invoking even a little bit of fear in the teacher would put the inspector more at ease, but alas, there was no alarm in her gaze. It was hard to say if that was good or bad.

The multihued, vibrant classroom was bursting with art projects adorning the walls – leaf prints made out of paint, haunted houses scribbled on black with white crayons, ghosts oozing out of the windows. Many cheesy posters filled up the remainder of the space – "There's no 'I' in team!" and "Treat others the way you want to be treated," in block rainbow letters were just a few of them. Mary had spotted Alice's desk pushed together with three other identical tables, her name spelled out on a tag that had illustrations of pencils and the alphabet.

Everything here indicated it was a stress-free zone, and so why did she feel like she might lose her cool? She should've had more faith in her child, but she knew how Alice was at home, and so she could only guess how that translated to school when she had an audience of twenty. It wasn't going to be easy hearing what a little show-off she was.

"It's so lovely to see you both," Miss Whitmore began with a smile that showed two rows of perfectly straight, white teeth. "It's always so interesting to match the parents with the child – at back-to-school night in August I hardly get a chance to put faces with the parents."

Vaguely, Mary wondered if she had said this to every set of mothers and fathers that had come through her doors this evening, but Marshall spoke up before she could embarrass herself.

"We are delighted to make your acquaintance as well," gentlemanly as ever, his partner wouldn't have been surprised if he'd taken the teacher's hand and kissed it. "Coming back to the first grade is nostalgia at its finest – it's been a long time since Mary and I were schooled in the intricacies of counting and sounding words out. Six years, in fact."

"Oh, that's right, because you have another daughter…" Miss Whitmore suddenly recalled, shuffling her papers as though the answer might be somewhere in there, which Mary found foolish. "I should know that…" her first nervous chuckle.

"Not at all – that would be Norah," the man helped her out. "She's Mary's daughter; she's in seventh grade."

"Of course, that's right," she giggled with the mention of the elder Shannon. "Alice talks about her enough; you'd think I'd remember."

"Only good things, I hope," Mary finally piped up. "They can be kind of catty," this was an understatement, but she didn't need to get into specifics.

"Well, I would say that's true of most siblings," Miss Whitmore waved it away. "But, since we're talking about Alice, I suppose we should dive right in…"

Already? This was a little quick; the small talk had already dissipated and the woman was riffling through her files once again, pulling a stack of about six or seven papers out of a manila folder. Mary didn't know how badly she wanted to see them. She knew Alice was smart; that was a no brainer. It was the reports of her behavior that she was wary of.

Three of the papers, the educator turned around so Mary and Marshall could see them. As Mary scanned the lines, she could see there was nothing to worry about here. They were blanket grades for all the regular subjects, plus classes like gym and music and art. Everything seemed to be in working order – the pages were filled with E's for 'exemplary' for the school didn't award the traditional grading system until third grade.

"She is _such_ a bright girl," Miss Whitmore launched right in with definite feeling in her voice, like she couldn't emphasize Alice's intelligence enough. "She learns everything so quickly – she's actually already reading on second grade level, so I transferred her to the high reading group just last week…"

"Which one was she in before?" Mary butted in.

"We have five of them, one made up of our struggling readers, two that consist of baseline readers, one that's a little higher baseline, and a fifth that is above grade level," she rattled off at lightning speed. "Alice was previously in the high baseline group, but the content was really too low for her, so I moved her up. She seems much happier in the top group."

"Really?" Marshall was baffled, but his wife didn't see how he could be; Alice had been segmenting words since she was four. "That's wonderful. You don't think she'll soon test out of that group too, do you? I wouldn't want her to get bored, although that certainly wouldn't be your doing…"

"I doubt it," Miss Whitmore assured him with a smile. "We'll really amp up the expectations after Christmas – push them a little bit more to start easing them toward second grade. I'm confident that Alice will be fine where she is."

"What about math?" Mary knew she sounded manic for information and that she wasn't chilling out as she should be given the already sunny circumstances, but she was waiting for the boom to be lowered. Pointing out a note on the report card, "It says here that she had a problem with one of the tests."

The other woman swallowed briefly before continuing, obviously sensing that her fellow female was much more high maintenance than her husband. Perhaps noticing the shift to a more professional atmosphere, Marshall gripped his partner's hand under the table. She held it, but did not squeeze back.

"She has had some very minor issues in math, but it's nothing I'm concerned about…"

"Like what?" Mary demanded.

"Well, her subtraction skills are not as far along as her addition ones," Miss Whitmore admitted. "It's very common at this age, and the more we practice, the better she'll get."

"Sounds reasonable…" Marshall sailed in on his usual wave of coolness.

"She also reverses a few of her numbers on occasion, but that's also something that should correct itself with time. It happens pretty infrequently, and she doesn't have the same trouble with any of her letters, so that's not a red flag…"

"What numbers?" the Marshal pushed persistently.

"Her sevens are sometimes backwards, and the same thing with six and nine, but I really don't see it that often…"

"Perhaps just a lapse in concentration," Marshall offered pleasantly before Mary bit this polite woman's head off. "Happens to the best of us."

"She used to mix up B and D when she was in kindergarten," Mary shared without really planning to.

"I haven't seen that at all," the other claimed. "Her language skills are excellent – not to mention her writing. I give the students prompts every week – a topic to write about in their journal – and I can't keep from laughing whenever I take out Alice's. She has such style, especially for someone her age."

Marshall beamed upon hearing this, "Style, indeed," he shot this look at Mary, inviting her to join in the festivity. "That's our Big Al."

Mary found it hard to believe that Alice's scripts were really that stellar. She likely didn't know how to spell half the words she might use, but it seemed Miss Whitmore was leaning more toward the content of the pieces, rather than the actual grammar. The mother had read enough of her daughter's musings to be able to decode some of the words she could sound out, but they were never spelled right. The English language was awfully confusing for someone just learning it.

"I'd actually like to show you one, if you don't mind…" reaching onto the floor, Miss Whitmore pulled a spiral-bound notebook out of a stack at her feet. "She's very clever, Alice, but this one has been my favorite so far this year – beautifully honest…"

All the adjectives were getting a little out of hand, and so Mary focused instead on the bright red cover of her daughter's journal. She had written her full name in enormous letters with purple magic marker – 'Alice Mann' – and the E on the end of her name was capitalized. She'd drawn several sloppy stars and a few lopsided happy faces around the letters to jazz it up; you could definitely tell it belonged to Alice.

"It's this one here…" Miss Whitmore broke into Mary's zone, turning to the desired page and flipping the book around. "I asked the students to write about the person they most want to be like, and this is what she turned in."

Marshall inched his miniscule chair closer to her to have a better look, and Mary assumed without even laying eyes on the page that her father was the individual their little girl would choose to gush over. She was her daddy's girl; she fawned at constant about how big and brave and brilliant he was. What other choice was there?

But, when she made herself scan the words on the page – most of them decipherable even if they were, in fact, spelled incorrectly – a lump caught in her throat so quickly she thought she might choke. Whatever she had expected to get out of this conference, it was not this. She only hoped she would be able to keep her emotions under wraps as she took in the piece before her with awe that was only mounting by the second.

 _The person I want to be like is my big sister Norah. She is thirteen and that means she gets to go to middle school. She has seven different teachers and her own locker and she gets to wear special clothes for gym and she gets to see my cousin Robyn every day. She gets to do all kinds of cool things there because she is a teenager._

 _Norah is the best reader in the entire world except for my dad. She reads really hard books that have lots of chapters and she knows what the writer means in every story she reads. She is also the best at social studies and knows where every country and state are even the ones she has never been to. I hope that when I am thirteen that I am as smart as Norah._

 _I think that Norah is the luckiest person ever because she has the biggest family in the world. She has a mom and a dad and she gets to see my dad all the time and she has me because I'm her sister and two cousins and an aunt and an uncle and Jill and a grandma and Jinx only Jinx died. They all love her a lot and I wish I had a family as big as hers._

 _My favorite thing about Norah is that she is really brave. Nothing scares her at all. She doesn't sleep with a night light and even when people make fun of her she never cries. I could never be as brave as her because I cry a lot especially when I get hurt. Norah even ran away one time when she was six and it didn't scare her even a little bit. My dad helped her get back home but she got where she wanted to go all by herself._

 _I will never get to be a big sister like Norah is but I hope that when I am grown up that I am brave and strong and funny like she is because she is the coolest person I know._

Even after she'd read it through three times, Mary could not take it all in. She was stunned.

Norah? _Norah?!_

Of all the people that Alice could've chosen, she'd picked _Norah?_ The same Norah that called her names and screamed at her to go away and never got off her case?It did not add up, and yet in some odd way, it did. Everything that Alice had said was true, minus the first grade embellishments of 'best' and 'ever' at each turn. When you looked at Norah through the eyes of a baby sister that really was just too young to understand the pressures of adolescence, she did seem remarkable.

But, Mary was at a loss for words; even if Alice felt the way she did, the woman never would've guessed she'd put so much of it down on paper. There was a satisfying, poignant sincerity to a child that young. If Norah had written such a thing about Alice, she'd have been mortified to have it read. Mary could be fairly sure that her younger daughter did not feel the same way. She would gloat six ways to Sunday that she'd created something so exquisite.

Perhaps thinking that the two parents before her were shocked into silence, Miss Whitmore was the one to break it, ignoring the marveled looks on their faces.

"I just about cried reading it!" she joked with a light laugh. "It's so sweet, but that's just who Alice is. She's a doll; so respectful and such a friend to the other kids."

It was this that snapped Mary back to reality like a rubber band, and she distinctly saw Marshall's head incline upward as well. The writings were one thing, but this report of her attitude was quite another.

"Alice?" the blonde stammered vacantly. "Alice is…polite…?" she was more with it now, not wanting to sound quite so flabbergasted. "She doesn't, you know…?" It would be difficult to put this delicately. "…Seek out attention? Negative attention?"

"Because, we sometimes have trouble getting her to follow directions at home, so don't be shy about the way she is here…" Marshall chimed in.

"No, she's so well-behaved," Miss Whitmore insisted, looking slightly bewildered herself that they could think otherwise. "I mean, she's energetic, don't get me wrong, but she knows when to turn it on and turn it off."

Mary's incredulity didn't catch up with her mouth in time.

" _Alice?_ "

"Yes," Miss Whitmore giggled.

Mary wanted so badly to believe this, and she felt terrible that she didn't. She loved Alice dearly, but the Alice this young woman was describing was nothing like the ball of fire she dealt with under their own roof. She knew she was not over-dramatizing her larger than life guise, nor her need to be the center of everything; it was part of her charm, and it didn't mean she wasn't amiable and kind. But, that didn't mean her exuberant nature had to be ignored. She was who she was.

"If you're trying to spare our feelings, its okay," Mary spoke up, too rooted in her own viewpoint to hold back. "We're well aware she can be a handful – I mean that whole incident with the water fountain?" she gave a cynical smirk to show she was not completely out of the loop. "We have our own informant, so it's not like we won't find out what she's really doing…"

This, understandably, confounded Miss Whitmore, and her eyes immediately traveled away from Mary's and over to Marshall's, whom she obviously thought might be of more assistance.

"I'm sorry, I don't really…"

The chief was quick to simplify things, "Jill Vaughn, one of your second grade teachers, is engaged to Norah's father, Mark," and it was a good thing this woman already knew who Norah was, or this would've just baffled her further. "We like to joke that she's our spy as far as Alice is concerned, but it's a silly game we play; we don't really…"

"I had no idea that Jill knew Alice outside of school!" Miss Whitmore exclaimed, gleeful to have put two and two together. "Well, that explains why she's always talking to her out on the playground or when she sees her in the hall." And, getting back to the topic at hand, "As far as the water fountain occurrence, I spoke to Alice about not wasting time when she goes to use the restroom and that was it."

"But, she can be sneaky," Mary was adamant, knowing she sounded like an awful harpy whose child couldn't do anything right. "I'm just…" she knew she was about to repeat herself, but couldn't help it. "…I'm surprised, I guess…"

"Pleasantly surprised," her husband agreed.

"Well, yeah," the blonde shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "Alice just thrives so much with a crowd – I was worried that she might be disruptive…"

"She's not at all," there was no changing her observations, and she actually saw the child far more than her parents did. "But, I understand your concern. I actually see this quite a bit. A lot of kids behave at home in ways they never would elsewhere – it has to do with their comfort level," this was psychiatrist speak if ever Mary had heard it. "When they know the expectation as well as they limits, they conform to fit them – not all of them," she amended. "But, many. I have no complaints about Alice; she's a lovely girl and I adore having her in my room."

That pretty much wrapped things up, Mary thought. If she probed any further, she was going to come off as malicious, someone looking to find fault where there was none. In some ways, she comprehended what the educator was talking about. When the threat of getting in trouble or being singled out for poor actions in front of one's peers was a real one, it was fathomable that a lot of kids would straighten up and fly right without being told. She supposed Alice fell in line with the numbers.

Marshall, for one, seemed overjoyed by such news. If Mary hadn't known better, she'd have thought he had originally been as panicky as she was. However, there was none of that now; he grinned like a goofball as the meeting came to a comfortable close.

"Well, we so appreciate the praise…" he babbled like an idiot. "It is fantastic to know that Alice is fitting right in and doing what is asked."

"She absolutely is," Miss Whitmore assured him. "You can keep her report cards…" at the mention, she slid them across the table and Marshall picked them up. "And, I actually have a few other assignments here that you can look over – some stories she wrote and her last math test." Motioning toward the far wall, "You're welcome to find her leaf project on your way out; it's hanging right up there."

"Thank-you so much," the man bestowed, throwing out his hand to shake, where he wrung hers heartily up and down. "Please let us know if there is anything you need in the future – don't hesitate to call."

"Same to you," the teacher reciprocated, her cheeks going slightly pink at his chivalry; no doubt she found him cute. Turning to Mary and attempting to end things on the highest note possible, "It was good to see you again, Mrs. Shannon."

Points were earned when she had called her by her maiden name, which she still possessed for work purposes. A lesser teacher might have assumed she was a Mann, such were Alice and Marshall, and overlooked the fine print. Mary did not know why she felt so disgruntled; the conference had been miles ahead of what she'd hoped for.

"Yeah, you too," she finally said, trying to sound nice. "Thanks for…everything."

"Of course."

With that, the pair of Marshals stood up and saw themselves out. Marshall, of course, had to stop and locate his daughter's masterpiece on the wall, which was made up of red and brown leaves in a nice swirling effect; he was quick to point out that the colors alternated, although every other student's did as well. Patterns must've been part of the art lesson.

Once in the hall, he tucked the papers they had departed with under his arm and raised his eyebrows at Mary, still wearing that ludicrous grin. He looked like an oversized cartoon character as they paused beside the rows of coat hooks occupied by all three first grade sections, all of them empty due to the lateness of the hour – it was after seven.

"What is wrong with your face?" Mary commanded when she could stand his jolliness no longer.

"I'm sorry, but should I not be delighted to hear that my daughter is a model scholar?"

"No, you should take it with a grain of salt."

"Will you never learn to accept the little prizes that life hands you?" he wanted to know, although likely not really expecting an answer. "We have raised a great kid! Whatever she does in our home, she obviously understands that here it is all business. Never once did I hear that she has ever dropped the word, 'hell…'"

"Well, there is that," if there was a bright side, Mary found it here.

"We have both earned a sound pat on the back, I am telling you…"

But, before his wife could tell him to hold the congratulations, footsteps sounded nearby, and both of them looked up to find Jill striding toward them. It wasn't so unusual that she would appear; the first and second grade wings were separated only by a boy's and girl's bathroom, two sinks, and matching water fountains. She must've been on a break from a conference of her own, because there was a chocolate chip cookie in her hand, something she had probably acquired from the teacher's lounge.

Marshall smiled, but Mary stiffened up. She hadn't seen Jill since the day she and Mark had announced their engagement to Norah, which had been almost a week earlier. There was a shining stone on her finger, which indicated the teenager might very well have been the last person to know about the ominous nuptials. Now that it was out, Jill was flaunting it for all the world to see.

A flashy ring wasn't the only thing she was flaunting. It appeared she had spilled the beans to her fellow staff members about the pregnancy as well, because the baggy shirts had disappeared. She wore a chic brown suit with a pencil skirt that looked infinitely professional on her, but it hid nothing. You could see her barely protruding belly quite clearly.

For some reason, this rubbed Mary the wrong way. It shouldn't have, but it did. She thought back to Joanna's conjecture about Alice being so drawn to Jill, and the flame burned even hotter. It was unfair of her to feel the animosity, but it was a battle to tamp it down. Alice was her child, not Jill's.

"Fancy seeing you two here," the future step-mother remarked pleasantly. "Finishing Alice's conference, or just going in?"

The ugly beast that lived in Mary's soul longed to snap that it was none of her business, but Marshall was quicker.

"Just finishing," he disclosed. "It was a glowing report, I am proud to say. How have your gatherings been going? Swimmingly, I hope?"

Mary normally admired that Marshall was so upstanding, but right now she wanted to tell him to shut up. Why was he being so engaging when Jill was walking around pretending to be a part of their family when she wasn't? Guilt plagued her briefly, because she knew if he could hear what she was thinking, he'd think she was terribly petty. And, she was. At least she wasn't acting on it.

"It's gone well so far," Jill replied to Marshall, but her eyes kept flying over to Mary's, who was standing stonily nearby. "Makes for a late night, but you do what you have to do."

"How have you been feeling?" the man went on, nearly driving Mary up the wall because he was continuing a conversation she wanted to end on the spot. "First trimester can be tricky…"

"Well, I've already made it to my second, thankfully," Jill corrected lightly. "Still some morning sickness, but not bad."

"I'm glad to hear it," he pressed on. "It sounds like your weekend with Norah went well – she seems to have taken a shine to the new house."

"I sure hope so," Jill's voice was laced with potential relief. "I want her to feel like it's her home, and the size is so much better suited for a family – which I guess includes Knox!" a throaty laugh escaped. "How's he working out?"

"Couldn't be better. You'll meet him soon, I trust."

"Oh, I can't wait."

"It's very charitable of you to take him on; it means a lot to Norah."

"Mark and I are happy to…"

"We really need to get home to the girls."

Mary's voice was jarring and left little to the imagination; part of her regretted it, but part of her didn't care. The way she had interrupted caught both individuals attention, but she'd had enough of watching their sickeningly sweet dialogue. Things that had never bothered her about Jill before were suddenly irksome. She was going to be Norah's family, not Mary's, the inspector thought ruefully. Alice was not included in that, and the way she was horning in was obnoxious.

Deep down, Mary knew that was not what was happening; it was kind of Jill to take such an interest and involve herself. It didn't make Mary any less territorial.

But, Marshall at least took the hint, although not without side glances to his wife.

"I suppose we should be getting on our way," he voiced a similar opinion. "We'll want to relieve Brandi of her responsibilities. But, great running into you."

"Yeah, you too," she looked at Mary as she said it, but the other woman gave her only a terse nod in return, which was her cue to exit.

Once she was gone, Marshall turned to his partner with a none-too-subtle sigh, mouth partially open and head titled to one side, like he couldn't grasp what had possessed her to act so childishly. His next question certainly spoke to this outlook.

"Just what are you doing?"

"What?" Mary brushed past him so they could start moving toward the front doors.

Marshall did not mince words, "Please do not do this."

"Don't do what?"

"Act jealous and shallow. You're a better person than that, and it does not become you."

"To each their own."

"Mary," he gripped her elbow to stop her getting away, and she let him only for a moment. Staring at her with steely blue eyes, "Whatever you think about Jill, whatever you feel, I beg you not to let it spiral out of control. It will tank things for her and Norah."

For once, Marshall was not able to read her mind. If he could've, he would've known that Norah and Jill weren't the ones she was worried about. It was Alice and her affinity for everyone other than her mother – even the big sister that acted as though she despised her. After learning how honorable Alice was in school, Mary felt like she'd been introduced to a stranger. She really couldn't stand for her and her little girl to drift any further apart.

XXX

 **A/N: To be honest, it was never my intention with Norah and Alice to make one look better than the other. It is my hope that they seemed equally redeemable and equally flawed, but I'm not sure that comes across. Alice is supposed to attention seeking, but sensitive when she calms down, and Norah is supposed to be kind of sarcastic and negative, but also a lot more sensitive than anyone gives her credit for. Alice's little paper might be overkill to paint her in a positive light, but I like to think she would feel like this deep down.**


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: I admit that I feel a little silly still posting this if no one is reading (I am going solely by reviews on that front). That is not a hint in any way for any of you that might be reading to go ahead and review – lord knows I am not the poster child for giving reviews myself. It is more to say that I am not trying to be conceited by continuing to post, but the story is done, so I figure I might as well keep it coming. I really do appreciate anyone who is reading; it flatters me to no end, and I have had such loyal followers for so many years. I want you to know that I am still so grateful for that.**

 **This is a chapter I actually like, although it is way too long, as usual.**

XXX

"Daddy! Daddy!"

Alice came careening through the living room like she hadn't seen her father in years, brunette coils swinging, and held out her arms. Recognizing the gesture, Marshall lifted her up and planted what sounded like a very wet kiss on her cheek. She giggled appropriately and wiped it away with her hand.

"What did Miss Whitmore say?" she wanted to know at once.

Marshall chuckled at her need to have the report so quickly while, behind him, Mary tried not to look brusque after her encounter with Jill, choosing to take in her surroundings instead. Max was sitting at the coffee table; it seemed he had brought a Lego set with him, because he was building a little village in various primary colors. Norah was on the floor with Knox, playing tug-of-war with a rope toy, and the dog seemed to be winning. Brandi was on the ground as well; Robyn right beside her, and the both of them had their heads buried in a box that seemed to be growing mildew. The ongoing search for the dance video, Mary guessed.

Alice was practically squirming with excitement in Marshall's arms, dying to hear the verdict on her parent-teacher conference.

"Daddy, tell me!" she demanded when Marshall did not respond fast enough. "Did she say I've been good?"

"Ah, well…" he gave a massively impressive sigh and tipped his head back, shamelessly teasing his daughter by toying with her emotions. Waiting until he was sure she was hanging onto every single word, "She said you're a devilish little monster that is giving her grey hair."

How he said this with a straight face, Mary had no idea, but he looked as serious as if he was discussing global warming with a politician. The mother rolling her eyes might've given the real result away, but it didn't appear Alice was fooled, anyway.

"She did not!" the child protested with a smile. "You're fibbing!"

"I don't know…" Norah cut in from her spot on the floor. "Sounds like an accurate description to me."

Alice ignored this, "What did she _really_ say?" now she was getting impatient. "It's bad not to tell the truth, daddy!"

"I'm afraid I cannot tell a lie…" he was still going strong, shaking his head in a disappointed way. "We heard you get sent to the corner for time out at least five times a day."

"She's never done that!" the first grader insisted, now knowing for certain that her father was nothing but a prankster. "Mommy, make him stop!"

"You are disgraceful," Mary grumbled at Marshall, her mind still back at the school and with Jill, wondering what impression she had left her with. Turning to her daughter, "Miss Whitmore loves you, Little Bit. Can't get enough of you – said you're a star student."

"Really?!" Alice squealed.

" _I'm_ not the liar around here," the blonde emphasized. "We heard nothing but good things." And then, remembering her juvenile feelings of envy toward Jill, she kicked it up a notch, "I'm very proud of you, Alice."

It wasn't often that she bequeathed affection outside of goodnight cuddles, but she leaned over and gave her daughter a much less noisy kiss than her father had, perhaps to show just how pleased she was.

"All right, all right, I concede…" Marshall proclaimed in the midst of this. "I must've mixed up your report with some other first grader's. Yours was stellar and then some, my smart cookie."

"That's great," Brandi called from where she was sitting. "I hope Max's is just as fantastic, although I'm not worried."

"You've got that right," Mary batted back with something of a sneer. "Max and troublemaker go together like Hitler and Gandhi."

As Brandi laughed wholeheartedly, the inspector realized that Max probably would not understand the reference, and so she pushed past her husband and into the living room. Reading her nephew's wide-eyed look of perplexity correctly, she waved a nonchalant hand to put him at ease.

"That's a compliment, bud," she assured him. "It means you're not a heathen."

"What's a heathen?" he whispered.

"I don't think we need to get into specifics," Marshall toted Alice along, dropping her into the couch cushions without warning so that she laughed raucously when released. "The actual definition doesn't exactly fit. We'll just go with an unruly barbarian – how's that?"

"Well," Brandi chuckled. "I have confidence I won't be hearing anything like that come Thursday."

"Barbarian would be a good term to describe you though, Alice," Norah looked up from her game with Knox to twist the knife; though she was smiling, like it was all in fun, it was telling that she had been the one to start a war when there wasn't one. "That means you don't have any manners and you don't know when to shut up…"

"I am _not_ a bar-a-bian!" the smaller rebutted, muddling the phrase, which caused her big sister to have a laugh at her expense. "And, I do _so_ have manners!"

"You mean like the way you chew with your mouth open so that we can all see your ground up food?" Norah reminded her unkindly. "That's gross."

"I do _not_ do that!"

"You do too; you're always chomping your macaroni and cheese like some sort of chimpanzee…"

"Miss Whitmore _says_ I have manners!" Alice was on the edge of the couch now, all satisfaction over her marvelous report erased. "I say 'please' and 'thank-you' and you never even ask for things you want, you just take them because you're mean and nasty!"

"Mean and nasty is better than being vulgar…"

"Vulgar is not a word!"

"Yes, it is; you're just not smart enough to know what it means…"

"Nore-uh…!"

"All right, all right…" Marshall finally stepped between them, ending their feud before it got any further. Nudging Alice back onto the couch lest she leap off and attack her sister like a cat, "Enough of this. I swear, you two fight for fun sometimes…"

"Do not!"

The two-word protest came unanimously; the girls sounded like a choir as they refuted Marshall's speculation, at which point Brandi broke the tension by laughing again. Uncrossing her legs, she stood up with a groan, giving the box that she and Robyn had been digging through a slightly disdainful look. The sixth grader stayed where she was, still pawing through the contents, but she didn't look hopeful, more resigned.

"Well, Robyn and I have been through just about every box in this house and mine, and we can't find this video she wants to watch…" the younger Shannon informed them to stem the girls' quarrel and keep it at bay. "I'm sorry, honey, but I think maybe it's gone," she continued with a sad look at her daughter. "It was probably in Jinx's studio and we got rid of it on accident when we cleaned the place out."

Robyn gave a dispirited sigh, looking nothing like her usual superstar self. The way she looked was a lot how Mary felt, and she wished she were able to express the same level of disillusionment the way her niece was. It wasn't just that she was still stuck on Jill, but now she had the dispute between her daughters to contend with.

An uncontrolled part of herself really wanted to lay into Norah; she'd gone after Alice for no reason, purely to yank her chain. Now that Mary had seen how Alice really felt about Norah, even if it likely wasn't on her mind twenty-four-seven, it made the big sister's attitude all the more vindictive.

Mary tried to imagine what motivation her elder child would have for lashing out at this very moment, and all she could come up with was that she hadn't wanted to hear anymore about Alice's fabulous conference. They'd all been gushing, and she'd wanted to put an end to it. Miss Whitmore was just one more person to add to the list of people that couldn't get enough of her little sister.

But, rather than articulate any of this, she allowed Brandi to go past her into the kitchen, and she took her place on the rug. The carton they'd been searching had all sorts of odds and ends in it – a few battered dolls with their clothes missing, two figurines that had been on Jinx's desk, one in the shape of a swan and the other a beautiful glass statue of a ballet dancer. Some of the trophies Mary and Brandi had located after their mother had died were inside as well, but far from all of them. There was also a zip-up CD case with sleeves for the discs, but Mary could tell by their labels that they were DVD's.

Various tags that Jinx had written in Sharpie indicated that these videos were of many students she'd had over the years, but none of the dates or class names indicated that Robyn's first recital was included in the batch. This made Mary wonder why they were even keeping them; for posterity, she supposed.

"Sorry this thing is MIA," she told Robyn honestly. "I wouldn't mind seeing it again myself, whether or not Alice wants to watch," she sort of meant that; it had been a long time since she'd viewed a snippet from the girl's early performance days.

"It's okay," the twelve year old sighed. "There are lots of others, and I guess it doesn't matter. What you said yesterday was true – I don't think Alice wants to do ballet."

"Probably not, but I don't blame you for trying," Mary told her. "Jinx would've done the same."

This got a small smile out of her, but just as the inspector was just about to close the case, she spotted a disc in the very last sleeve. The silver finish caught the light and made it shine, highlighting the green print written neatly across the round donut hole in the middle: "Kids: August 2nd." There was no year.

"What about this one?" she flashed it in Robyn's face to get her opinion.

"I don't think that's it," she cast it off. "On all the other DVD's, she wrote what group was doing the dance and the date. That's probably just from a practice or something."

"Have you watched it?"

"No."

"Well, you never know…" Mary didn't know why, but she was curious and she also wanted to give Robyn something for all her hard work in looking. "Put it in and see."

Not appearing hopeful, the girl still did as her aunt suggested and wandered over to the television, opening the cabinet that held the DVD player. Sliding the tray out, she placed the disc inside and waited for it to load. Halfway through, Brandi and Marshall, who were chatting in the kitchen, noticed what was going on.

"Did you find it?!" Brandi called.

Robyn didn't answer, merely waited, and Mary stood nearby with one hand on her hip, wondering what unknown children were going to pop onto her screen. Knowing her luck, they wouldn't even be able to determine the origin of the content; Robyn was probably right, it was likely a video Jinx had discarded as unimportant, especially when it wasn't even labeled as specifically as all the others. Still, Mary could feel everyone's eyes fixed on the TV; Max even looked up from his Lego's. Norah pretended she was still occupied with Knox, but her mother knew she was sneaking glances as well.

Suddenly, a shaky, jumpy shot of a hardwood floor appeared on the screen. The camera swung this way and that before it settled in at the right height, displaying the room in front of it. With a lurch, Mary realized that it wasn't the studio – it was her house. The house she was standing in right now.

" _Darling, are you coming?"_

The voice almost brought her to her knees; the smallest gasp escaped from her mouth, but no one seemed to hear it. The sugary sweetness, the saccharine quality, the honeyed tones she had known so well for so many years – it was Jinx's. It was Jinx's voice; she was the one behind the camera.

" _Just a minute, I'm getting ready!"_

A second tone, this one tinny and piping, like that of a squeaky, overexcited mouse. Mary recognized this one as well, although it had changed significantly over the years.

"Is that me?" Robyn whispered, for there was no visual evidence yet to account for it.

"What is this?" Brandi was back in a flash, Marshall at her side. "What's it from?"

"I don't know…" Mary murmured, yearning for the next timbre to appear, wondering what else had been captured so many years before that none of them knew had been frozen in time. "I'm not sure…"

" _Sweetheart, I'm ready when you are…"_

It was intoxicating, hearing her like this. Mary loved it; it welled her up with a joy she could never describe.

" _Okay-okay…"_

For a moment, there was a pause, Jinx holding the camera steady on the space of floor between the living room couch and the kitchen – the spot where Marshall was standing right this second. And then, in an instant, Robyn appeared in the frame, flying in as though she'd been shot from a cannon. She was young, maybe six years old, and wearing her always-chosen costume from that period of her youth – a pink tutu with a taffeta skirt, waist-length hair wound on top of her head in a messy ballerina bun.

" _My name is Robyn Mary Shannon and I was born on the Fourth of July!"_

Brandi squealed with unsuppressed mirth, clapping a hand over her mouth, no doubt basking in the reminiscence of her daughter's old motto. The Robyn in the here and now had cheeks that were growing red, but she was grinning too.

" _I can dance, and I can sing, and I know all five positions…"_ she held up all the fingers on one hand. _"This is the first position…"_

She smacked her heels together as though on command, toes pointing outward; it probably looked better in ballet slippers, but she was barefoot.

" _Don't forget your arms, angel…"_

Jinx's coaching was patient, and Robyn immediately snapped to attention.

" _I know how to plie too – you have to bend your knees like this…"_

But, all of a sudden, Mary realized that Robyn was not alone in the picture. As she flexed her legs for the camera, looking thrilled that her grandmother was taking enough interest to film her, another body appeared in the background – a blonde with tangled locks and a baseball jersey on her torso. Jinx began to giggle, for her oldest granddaughter was hopping up and down and giving her cousin bunny ears, a cheesy smile pasted on her face.

" _Am I doing it wrong?"_ Robyn wondered.

" _No, dear,"_ Jinx replied with a stifled chuckle.

"Who is that?" Alice wrinkled her nose from the sofa.

"That's me!" Norah sprung to her feet to get a better look, leaving Knox in the dust. "See, there I am…"

The first grade Norah came bouncing into view and while her cousin seemed initially startled to find her there, she laughed at the antics, which was something Alice would not have done had her big sister interrupted a show. Norah was glowing on the screen; her cheeks were tan from summer sunshine and her hair looked like it hadn't been brushed in a week. Both knees were skinned, without band aids, and she wore denim shorts over her jersey with her beloved red All Star sneakers on her feet. She was beautiful.

" _Your majesty…"_ Robyn crooned at her cousin with a bow.

Norah ignored the title and looked straight into the camera, her green eyes round and vivacious. Mary tried to remember the last time her daughter's orbs had looked so animated, so full of love.

" _Jinx, I broke a plate,"_ she reported casually. _"Max wanted some grapes."_

" _All right, I'll get it, sweetheart; don't worry about it…"_ Jinx had no concerns. _"You be careful not to step in the glass."_

" _Heaven forbid!"_ Robyn bellowed dramatically, smacking her hands to her cheeks. _"It shall be like walking across hot coals – our feet will burn and we will perish unless the king comes to save us!"_ one eye was fixed on the camera the whole time. _"Whatever will we doooooo?"_

Alice began to cackle from the sofa at Robyn's long-ago exploits. Mary, too, had forgotten just how much make-believe her niece had engaged in at that age. It was really quite different from the way Alice behaved; Robyn's imagination was so vast that it could carry her anywhere.

Out of nowhere, a shriek sounded from somewhere off-camera, although it wasn't a distressed one. But, it was enough for Robyn to crank it right up again.

" _The heir to the throne is in grave danger!"_ she hollered like some terrible actress on a daytime soap opera. _"I must rescue him before it is too late!"_

In a split second, she was gone, and that left Norah standing in the shot by herself. She did not gravitate toward the camera as Brandi's little girl did, but she seemed aware of its presence. Rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, she flashed the lens a peace sign and grinned girlishly.

" _You want to say something, honey?"_ Jinx coaxed.

" _What would I say?"_

" _Whatever you feel like."_

" _Did I tell you what Marshall did at the pool the other day?"_ her eyes did not meet the viewer's; it was plain from the way that they slanted upward that she was talking to Jinx, not the camera. _"He did a cannonball off the high dive! But, when I tried, I did a belly flop. Did I show you my tummy?"_

Again, seemingly not even thinking about the film, she pulled up the hem of her shirt to reveal a red rash spreading from side-to-side. Jinx zoomed in to get a better look.

"I remember that!" the thirteen-year-old Norah exclaimed. "Mom was so pissed at you; she thought you meant for me to land on my stomach," aiming this remark at her step-father.

No one corrected her language this time, all of them too absorbed in the video before them.

" _Does it feel better, honey?"_ Jinx probed, backing up so that her granddaughter filled the entire frame once more. _"It looks painful…"_

" _It didn't hurt,"_ Norah insisted, brave as ever, pushing her tattered hair behind her ears. _"Robyn's was worse because she was trying to do one of those swan dives like the synchronized swimmers on TV. She had a flower in her hair and everything, but she lost it on the bottom of the pool."_

Before Jinx could comment on this, pre-kindergarten Robyn herself came staggering back into sight, lugging a reluctant little boy by one hand. If he hadn't been bawling before, he certainly was now; his big sister wasn't listening to a word of his protests, but dragging him along to participate in whatever game she had concocted.

" _Thank goodness you survived!"_ she moaned. _"The kingdom is no longer lost!"_

" _Wob-in!"_ the two-year-old wailed.

" _Darling, let him go; he's not a toy…"_

"Oh my goodness, Max!" Brandi shouted out, tears glimmering in her eyes as she pointed out her infant son. "Look at you!"

The boy obviously could not connect the image before him with the person he was embodying right now. Unlike Norah and Robyn, he wouldn't have any recollection of this time in his life, just about a month before his second birthday. He blinked expectantly up at his mother for confirmation.

"Is that really me?"

"Of course it's you!" Brandi verified. "My little sheepdog…"

Indeed, the Max on the screen had shaggy, sandy hair that fell in his eyes and combed every inch of his little round head, crystal blue eyes buried beneath the mop. It was before Mary had cut it on a boring afternoon playing barber with her daughter.

"Why does my hair look like a girl's?" he wondered.

"Oh, stop it…" Brandi slapped his arm affectionately. "You were so handsome; it was your rock star look…"

Back on the television, the only male in the group was tugging at Norah's leg after Robyn had released him, whining for the fruit he had requested earlier.

" _G'wapes, g'wapes…"_

"How come I'm not in this?" Alice butted in, not able to conceive that there was a time when she had simply not been around. "Where am I?"

But, her query was answered as though on cue. Distantly, off-camera, there was the sound of a key in the lock of a door, and the lens panned appropriately, leaving the children to their own devices. Mary had to wonder why Jinx had continued to tape them once Robyn's routine had been cut short, but the everyday quality to the video was what the inspector suddenly found so special about it. No preening, no presenting – unless you counted her niece, and that was simply who she had been – just a day in the life of the Mann-Shannon-Alpert clan. The woman remembered so many days just like this one, especially that summer before she'd become a mother for the second time. To have the keepsake like this brought her unanticipated happiness, and Jinx's narration was the icing on the cake.

Her front door warbled on the television, and who should step through, but Mary herself. But, it wasn't just Mary – it was Mary with the perfect clue as to where Alice had been at that time in their lives.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…" she breathed as she laid eyes a version of herself from six years prior. "Oh my God…"

Norah began to laugh, "Look how fat you are!"

Robyn joined in, "You are totally huge; I'd forgotten."

"Wow, Mare…" Brandi jumped on the bandwagon. "Talk about a blast from the past."

"Why are you fat, mommy?" Alice had missed all the hints and had crawled onto the coffee table, scattering Max's Lego's, but he didn't seem to notice. "You've never been that big…"

"She's not fat, she's pregnant," Marshall responded for his wife. "That's you in her belly."

Alice gaped, delighted, "No way!"

"None another," her father claimed.

It was true. Unlike Jill, who was already sporting what promised to be a perfectly rounded pregnant belly, the likes of which appeared to contain a small basketball, Mary looked just as the kids said she did – overweight. There was no spherical shape to her stomach, but instead an all-over mass that extended all the way across her waistline so that it resembled an unattractive paunch. The sad thing was, she was only about six months along at the point in time they were witnessing; she'd gotten much more obese-looking as time had gone on.

But, in spite of the surly expression on her face as she plodded through the door, no doubt from a day at the office, there was a small explosion when she appeared. Several someones had obviously been happy to see her.

" _Hi, sweetheart!"_

" _Mary, watch my second position!"_

" _Hey, mom!"_

" _Berry-Berry-Berry…!"_

Max toddled away from the girls as Mary glared at the camera, immediately attaching himself to her thigh, burying his face in her knee. In the here and now, her heart gave a twinge seeing her nephew express such adoration for her. She'd always felt she understood him better than most, but when he'd been so small, she'd neglected to recall just how fond of her he'd been.

" _Moppet the Muppet…"_ she observed, but she immediately scooped him up and held him on her hip, kissing his cherub cheeks and sweeping his hair out of his eyes. Turning to Jinx, _"What are you doing? Get that thing out of my face."_

" _Hello to you too, dear."_

" _This isn't candid camera,"_ she complained. _"I didn't sign a consent form. Put it away."_

" _You are such a party pooper,"_ Jinx joshed.

" _Party pooper!"_ Robyn crowed.

" _Mommy, Max wants grapes…"_

" _I'll get him some; it'll get me off this sitcom you seem to be taping. Like I need the ten extra pounds the camera adds…"_

Without another word, the pregnant Mary was gone, and Norah tailed right after her. This left Robyn on her own, just as the video had begun, but she had different ideas this time. Less interested in making a spectacle of herself, she took hold of a new thought, knowing that by fluttering her eyelashes and acting extra-sweet that her grandmother would give her almost anything.

" _Jinx, can I try the camera?!"_

" _Oh, I don't know, angel; it's expensive and I need it for my classes…"_

" _Pleeeeeeease?!"_ she begged. _"I'd be careful! Just for a minute? I could be like a director!"_

It didn't take much to sway Jinx, _"All right, but use two hands, okay?"_

" _Yay!"_ Robyn chirruped.

There was a beat while the transfer was made; the picture wiggled and spun, rocketing around from the ceiling to the floor, Jinx's and Robyn's voices muffled as the camera was secured with its new owner. Even after it was clearly in Robyn's hands, it took several seconds for her to focus on anything; the movie shook and tilted, giving a brief view Mary setting Max on the counter, and then the parched Albuquerque desert outside the front window.

But, with not a single indication that things were ever going to sharpen up, the lens found a home and landed on the person who had just been behind the glass. Mary's breath caught in her throat and, like Brandi, her hand moved upward and covered her mouth. She was a walking cliché, she knew, but that was the furthest thing from her mind right now. Norah said it best, though she sounded far more ecstatic than her mother felt.

"It's Jinx!"

What was ruminating in Mary's stomach was almost impossible to describe – it was half unfathomable bliss, half horrible, wrenching sadness. Hearing her mother had been one thing; it had been a taste, a sample, a tiny piece of the past that she could hold in two hands and cherish because she had never known it had existed. Seeing her was another barrier all together, one that she found herself unable to hurdle over.

It was amazing just how much Jinx looked like the picture that resided on the back of Lia's door at the studio. Her skin was milky, her eyes were a gorgeous forest green, her brunette hair had that slight wave her daughter had grown accustomed to; she wore a pale pink checkered top and dark jeans that never should've fit a woman of her age. She also seemed to have realized she was the target of Robyn's eye, because she gave a sheepish half smile and a funny little wave.

Mary had the almost unquenchable compulsion to wave back at her, which was so foolish she had to chastise herself to knock it off. Her heart was thudding so uncomfortably that it might soon burst through her ribcage. What was the matter with her? Ten seconds ago, she'd been elated; now she felt sick.

" _And, action!"_

" _I guess that means I'm supposed to talk now."_

" _I can interview you! What's your name?"_

" _Jinx Shannon,"_ playing along.

" _Is Jinx your real name?"_

" _No,"_ a flighty chuckle. _"It's Ginger."_

" _Really?"_ Robyn had not expected this anecdote.

" _Really. I was born Ginger Evelyn Reed."_

" _When's your birthday?"_

" _August 16_ _th_ _, 1946."_

" _So, how come people call you Jinx?"_

Mary abruptly realized that she did not know the answer to this either. All those years with her mother, all the time they'd spent together; she'd known her given name was Ginger, although only one person had ever called her that. How could she have never inquired how the quirky moniker had originated? Was she about to found out? She wasn't sure she wanted to.

Jinx gave a tittering laugh and cocked her head, eyes journeying away from her granddaughter as though she were sinking herself into history too long ago to really identify with. She was stunning. Mary had forgotten just how stunning.

" _Well, it was my mother who nicknamed me Jinx. It just stuck."_

" _Why?"_

" _Do you know what a jinx is?"_

" _Sort of…"_

" _Who broke this plate and left it on my floor?!"_ a beast bellowed from far off.

Her own voice was like an alarm. Mary was pulled from her reverie, her partial enchantment, and she looked around to find her family still utterly mesmerized by this treasure. But, she was rapidly realizing that she couldn't stand to watch any longer. What had once been glorious was now painful. Jinx's face was ripping into her heart; she was so healthy, so loving, a grandmother who held her children's children in highest esteem and would do absolutely anything to get a smile out of them. Elegant and sober as she was, it was just too much for Mary, who had already been missing her a lot more than she'd ever let on.

She wasn't going to get to hear the source of her late mother's unusual title because the compulsion to start sobbing was just too strong. She cursed herself for being so susceptible to a six year old picture playing out on her television, but it had struck her like a knife and she felt like she was bleeding all over the floor. The voice had been magnificent; the face was putting her over the edge.

Like she'd suffered a blow to the skull after unintentionally snapping back to reality, she shook her head and knew she had to escape before she came completely apart.

"Excuse me…"

Past Norah and Knox, past Marshall and Robyn, leaving Brandi and Max and Alice behind her, her feet carried her down the hall and back to her bedroom, offering a safe haven for losing her cool. In seconds, she had taken refuge in the bathroom, shutting the door and turning the water in the sink on full blast so no one could hear whatever might be expelled.

Marshall was right. Lia was right. She did not know how to be happy. Her smiles always eventually turned to tears.

XXX

 **A/N: Mary's reaction is probably overdone, but it is what it is!**


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: Special thanks to Adelled for reviewing so many chapters, and to my guest reviewer, who is right – much of this story is fluff. And, this chapter is definitely repetitive.**

XXX

Mary wasn't sure how long she stayed in the bathroom. It had been a long time since she'd felt so dumb. Norah's periodic eruptions tended to make her feel like a moron, but at least she had partners where that was concerned – Marshall, Mark, even Jill. This wasn't the same. Everyone had been captivated by the video, such a find, worth more than gold and a million times better than the one Robyn had actually been looking for. And, at least for a few minutes, Mary had shared their sentiment, but no longer.

It seriously troubled her that Jinx's face could have such a negative effect on her; it was almost as though she'd died all over again. She didn't understand it; she looked at pictures of her mother almost every day. What had made this so disconcerting, and how had it happened so fast?

Sitting on the toilet, the noise of the water in the sink drowning out whatever was going on behind the door; Mary made every attempt to compose herself before rejoining the family, or at least to come up with a plausible excuse. Her skin was streaked with tears, but she had not descended into full blown sobs. The release of wetness was more out of sadness than the need to unleash any pent-up misery.

But, she must've sequestered herself longer than she'd realized, or else those she'd left behind weren't very patient, because there was a gentle knocking on the door sooner than she anticipated.

"Mary?" her name came between knocks. "Mary, it's me…"

Without even looking, she knew it was Marshall, and not just because he was the only man in the house minus Max. Quickly, she worked to mop up her eyes, but it wouldn't take him long once she allowed him admittance to see the evidence that she'd been crying.

"Can I come in, please?"

She reached to turn off the water, knowing she couldn't avoid him forever, and tore off several squares of toilet paper to help in concealing her appearance. Her voice was throaty and clogged when she used it.

"Yeah…"

Without missing a beat, Marshall turned the knob, but he was a gentleman about revealing his entire frame. He was well aware that his wife wouldn't have shut herself away for no good reason, and barging in was her version of an invitation to bid a hasty exit. And so, only his head appeared around the hatch, long-ostrich-neck and all. The image almost made Mary want to laugh, as this gave the impression he had no torso. As it was, she could only continue to sniffle.

"Hey…"

His voice echoed in the small space, but it was soft and gentle, like if he spoke too loudly it would scare her away.

"Where did you go?"

This, of course, was code for, 'Why did you run off?' or something similar, because he could clearly see where she had gone. Without waiting for an answer, he stepped all the way inside and carefully shut the door behind him.

His entire body seemed to slump as he got a good look at his partner. That was the thing about Marshall. He was so compassionate, so generous, that he felt everything that she was feeling. If she hurt, he hurt as well. Once upon a time, Mary had longed for a man that could be so empathetic, especially since, growing up, the one male in her existence had been nothing of the kind.

Could that have been why she'd been so suddenly broken by the image of Jinx's face staring back into her own? All these years later, when she claimed to have grown so much, she was still that frightened, scrappy little girl yearning for a daddy that was never coming? Did she relish, deep down, the protection craved by a child who had never been taken care of? And, seeing Jinx made her want it that much more?

This angered as much as upset her and unexpectedly caused her to well up again. The backs of her eyes burned and she was well aware that a tear wiggled stubbornly out of each eye. She carelessly wiped them away with the back of her hand, but this was just asking for Marshall to come closer.

"What's the matter?"

The only response she could give was worthless, but it was also the only honest one.

"I don't know…"

Her tone trembled at admitting it, at not knowing herself well enough to recognize what had caused her to overreact so harshly. Marshall looked more concerned than ever, his brow furrowed as he ran a hand through his always-styled hair. Peering down at Mary, he leaned on the edge of the counter to appraise her. His fingers automatically gravitated toward her own locks and brushed them smooth.

"Can't you try and tell me?"

Her want to confess was strong, but her brain was too muddled to put everything into words. It was like all the failures she had felt with her daughters as of late had jumbled together and reached their breaking point and Mary, being Mary, couldn't own up to the fact that she'd done anything other than succeed – as a mother or anything else. The need to be confident was so vital that she had taken those feelings of inadequacy as a mother and turned them into something entirely different.

Mourning her own mom, instead of her ability to be one.

"I just…" she was hiccupy, if not hysterical. "…I don't really…" The next part was a lie, and also true, in an odd way. "…I don't want to watch anymore…"

"Why not?" Marshall pressed, which was a little unlike him; typically, he was more wary of poking at her emotions. "You looked like you were enjoying it, but…"

"I just don't want to anymore…"

"Well, we can turn it off…"

"No," she cut him off there, not going to let knowledge of her little meltdown spread to the rest of the house. "No, don't turn it off. The kids like it…"

Marshall didn't seem to know what to say to this, seemed to know in that intuitive way of his that Mary had more on her mind than she was sharing. However, he nodded as though he accepted her request, and he wouldn't go racing back to the living room to order the children dispense with their indulgences in memories and find something else to do.

Mary knew she had to say something, that she couldn't let her dutiful husband watch over her all night, like a dog on point. They had one of those now, after all. And, in any case, it was not in her nature to have him at her beck and call; now wasn't the time to start a dependency like that.

And so, she uttered the only thing that floated into her head – the only thing that made sense, even if it was out of left field, and didn't match in the least.

"I miss my mom…"

Though her lip quivered, she managed not to descend into a shambles all over again. Seeking comfort, her head titled to one side and found Marshall's knee, just the right height from where she sat below him. This caused him to pet her hair a little more roughly, and also more assuredly. From somewhere up above, she also thought she'd heard a tiny sigh – whether because she was trying, or because he felt badly for her, she couldn't be sure. Maybe both.

"Oh…" he respired quietly, still with his arm hooked around her back. "Of course you do…" it was so like him to be this understanding, like her behavior was perfectly normal when in reality it was out of left field. "There isn't anything wrong with that…"

"But, there's something wrong with _me_ …" Mary insisted almost defiantly. "I walk through life, day after day, like Jinx being dead was just some bump in the road, and then this sets me off like some hormonal basket case. For Christ sakes, I'm not supposed to be pregnant _anymore_ …"

"You can't be so unfair to yourself," Marshall contradicted. "Death can be like that – you adjust, you create a new normal. But then, some days, it hits you really hard."

"I think about her a lot more than I let on…" she claimed, all-but denying her previous statement. "And, I don't get why. I keep thinking she'd be able to figure out all this crap with Norah, and if she were still alive, I would _never_ think that…" sad, but true. "What is it about me that I only want what I can't have – that I don't appreciate anything until it's gone?"

There was no doubt in her mind that Marshall would refute this as well, but for a moment or two, he simply pondered, cradling his chin very near his lap. She wanted to sit up, to not be so moony and lovesick, but it was undeniably nice, snuggled so close to him, that she decided there was no need to move.

"You think you're the only one who does that?" he finally said.

And, Mary knew exactly what to say to this, "Maybe not the _only_ one, but you sure as hell don't," and if he tried to disagree, she would argue. "You parade around with this air that everyone and everything in your life is a gift."

"I think that is a bit of an exaggeration…"

"It is not," and, if for no other reason but to be able to look at her husband in the eyes, she unfurled herself from his touch. "You take _nothing_ for granted. And, why are you like that? And, why in the world would you want anything to do with someone like me, that blows everyone off and even when I lose them I'm still not adult enough to act upset like any normal human being…"

"You're rambling," here, Marshall took her face in both his hands, forcing her to stop chattering. "And getting way ahead of yourself. This isn't about you and me. This is about Jinx."

There was nothing like cutting right to the fat, and Mary couldn't blame the man for trying to head her off. She didn't always make a lot of sense when she was agitated or unhappy, and they didn't need any more melodrama on their hands.

Plus, she strongly suspected he did not want to get into particulars concerning who was the better, bigger person in their marriage. It was because of that notion, lodged in Mary's brain many years before, that had almost resulted in no marriage at all. She had always, forever, believed Marshall to be too good for her, and he could challenge her until he was blue in the face; she didn't listen. Underneath, she was still callous and aloof, and there were times even Marshall couldn't convince her otherwise.

But, nonetheless, she could see why he didn't want to waffle around with that elephant eternally living in their union. And, he was right. Her minor tantrum had very little to do with them and, if not everything to do with Jinx, than plenty.

Mary sighed and slumped out of his grasp again, her back leaning against the toilet tank. Marshall was patient as she dried her eyes one last time and wadded up the tissue to throw in the wastebasket. Even once she'd disposed of them, she ran a finger under her lids and let out another exhale before she said anything.

"I used to be so hard on Jinx, and now I'm as bad of a mother as she was when I was a kid."

There was no justification for saying such a thing. The woman hadn't even known she felt the way she did until the words came spilling out of her mouth. It was even hard to know if she was being truthful, or merely playing the role of a martyr – downplaying her attributes just to have Marshall build her up again. She hated to think she had sunk that low.

But, whether she had or she hadn't, the taller was still going to appease her no matter what.

"That is not even close to accurate," his voice was low and serious, like he was a little afraid for her sanity. "On several levels."

"Oh, yeah?" Mary scoffed.

"Yes," he didn't waver. "For starters, Jinx was not a model parent because of one very important component…"

"You're not seriously going to pull the boozer card, are you?"

"I wouldn't call it as such, but yes," Marshall closed his eyes very briefly before opening them again. "Had that single element been eliminated, things might've been entirely different…"

"I think you're forgetting about Mr. Hit-Me-and-Hold-'Em-Up…"

He ignored this, "Second of all…" speaking right over her. "Sobriety reformed Jinx in one fell swoop."

"I wouldn't say _that_ …"

"And, finally," his tone certainly had a concluding note to it. "On what planet do you really believe that you are not a good mother?" And, without waiting for her to respond, "You are an _outstanding_ mom, and if you're going to talk that way about yourself, you can hit the road."

He even threw a thumb over his shoulder to demonstrate, but Mary could see the twinkling, teasing quality of his eyes that said he wasn't serious. Nonetheless, there were few things he hated more than his wife being forlorn, especially when it was self-inflicted. She wouldn't get away with talking down on herself for long.

"Well, if I'm so great, then why is Norah such a disaster?"

She looked at him out of woebegone eyes, not unlike Knox's had been before he'd been dubbed a Mann-Shannon for life. But, she also spoke quietly, almost dejectedly, and that wasn't a side of herself she often wanted to reveal. It was her greatest talent to be able to feign confidence, and she'd just allowed all the walls to come crashing around her without a second thought.

"Norah is not your fault."

"It's gotta be _somebody's_ fault…"

"No, it doesn't," Marshall persevered gallantly. "We are all doing the best we can, and adding Knox to the mix has certainly improved her disposition…"

"Yeah, for a whole day…"

"But, it's progress…"

"Until she snaps right back like some rubber band or boomerang," the blonde gestured wildly to the doorway, indicating the space beyond where the children and Brandi still resided. "You saw the way she jumped down Alice's throat just for the hell of it…"

"Nothing happens overnight," always the professor, you could count on Marshall to spout idioms like water. "Baby steps. That's what it'll be for awhile, I fear. But, it's like we tell the witnesses – one foot in front of the other is all you can do sometimes. It doesn't mean you aren't moving, it just means you're getting there in your own way and your own time…"

"I guess…" Mary wasn't convinced. "But, seeing Jinx like that – the person she became, how much she grew…" the familiar twinge that she often felt when she experienced guilt over not expressing to her mother just how much pride she'd felt for her transformation returned for a moment. "I used to think it wasn't possible, that she would never change…"

"And, yet…"

"And, I know that she did," the inspector acknowledged. "But, it was a bear dragging myself through all the years in-between. Can I really do the same thing with Norah? The greener grass seems like its miles away…"

"I don't think you have to ask me if you can do it," Marshall shook his head with a wry smile on his face. "You are never one to say no to a challenge."

"Yeah, but if Jinx were here, she'd probably be laughing in my face…"

"Why is that?"

"Because I was nothing short of a demon as a little kid _and_ as a teenager – between me and Brandi and no dad around, she was in the trenches," Mary recalled with some odd kind of fondness. "She'd think it was a laugh riot that I've got a kid spinning me in circles the same way I did to her." And then, with a repentant laugh, "Karma's a bitch."

It was doubtful that Marshall would be quite so disparaging about it, but he smiled anyway, seemingly just glad that the tears had vanished and they were on more even footing. And, since she'd already brought up her older daughter once, Mary figured she might as well do it again and get all her worries out in the open. There likely wouldn't be a better time to express them.

"What do you think they'll say about Norah tomorrow?" she wanted to know, referring to the conference they were scheduled to have with a great many of Norah's teachers, such was the custom in middle school. "Somehow, I don't think the report will be as incredible as Alice's was…"

"We got lucky once," Marshall was optimistic. "And, that wasn't even luck. Call me crazy, but I think parenting accounts for a great deal of how a child behaves when they venture out into the world," a wink, paying a compliment to both his wife and himself.

"Does that mean we'll get the blame if we don't hear what we want?"

"I hope not."

"Is that all we can do – hope?"

"We can listen to what the great educators tell us and proceed from there," not only was he confident, he was proactive as well. "I haven't actually asked you yet, but were you interested in my attending the meeting?"

Mary didn't work very hard at keeping her bemusement off her face. It was probably foolish to just expect him to tag along if she didn't present him with the opportunity – this was a man who never overstepped his bounds – but she still spoke before she could think things through.

"Is there a reason you wouldn't?"

"Well, I can if you want me to." And then, as though Mark was listening at the door, "But, Norah is not my daughter."

Mary was dismissive, "Yes, she is…"

Marshall was the opposite, "No, she's not," he was very firm, almost stern, and his blue eyes turned hard in the dull light of the bathroom. "It's actually very sweet of you to denote me with such a title, but it doesn't change the facts. Years down the road, when Norah and Jill have mended fences, I know you wouldn't want Mark referring to her as Norah's mother."

Just the thought put a knot in Mary's stomach, and she understood what her partner meant, but she still didn't think it was the same. It was as she had always presented it – Marshall had never been an interloper, but a constant, everlasting feature in Norah's life. Jill had been no such feature, unless you only counted the past three years.

"Well, to answer your question…" she chose to discount his previous statement. "If you can get away from the office, I'd really like you to come. I'm not wild about sitting around with Mark, pretending we're amicable…"

"But, you _are_ , and you know it," Marshall said with a smirk. "I have faith you and Mark could put your heads together for the greater good. But, nonetheless…" he amended when Mary looked concerned that he wouldn't show up. "I will rearrange and be by your side, if that is what you wish."

If there was one thing that Mary had learned to do, even in trying to maintain her tough exterior, it was to display gratitude when it was warranted. Sometimes, she felt that she could be appreciative at all hours of the day considering who her husband was, but she was careful to reserve it for moments like these.

"Thank-you."

He bowed his head like some prince charming, "My pleasure."

He couldn't really know just how indebted Mary was to him, not just for this, although that was what was on her mind right now. She'd given Mark the cold shoulder lately, but she did love him and would've put her differences aside for the sake of Norah and her education. But, knowing she would have an ally, someone she knew without question cared about Norah as much as Mark did – and, not because he had to, but because he wanted to – worked wonders for her. There was a reason their partnership at WITSEC had functioned so well for so many years. They were a well-oiled machine, and that could only come in handy when they traveled to the middle school the next day.

"I'm still not sure what all this was about," Mary confessed, harking back to the video, which was likely still playing in the room beyond. "This little…" she motioned toward her eyes, still slightly red and puffy from crying. "…Show."

"It's okay," Marshall assured her. And then, offering his hand, "Sometimes letting loose can be cathartic, although I am sure you don't buy into that."

"Nah, I don't," she confirmed, allowing him to pull her upward where she fell in beside him. He pressed his lips into her cheek briefly, and she hummed contentedly. "Mmm…but, I guess I'll take your word for it."

"Have I failed you yet?"

"Maybe you will one day before we're old."

"You mean we haven't reached senior citizen status yet?"

"Well, talk to Norah. She'll tell you what the word is these days on when your parents become elderly and have to be sent to the home."

Marshall chuckled, but as he blindly led his wife out the bathroom door, through the bedroom, and slowly back down the hall, his smile faltered, swallowed up in the shadows of the corridor. Tinny noises were issuing from the living room, indicating that the film had not yet concluded. Mary felt her heart pitch forward, almost as though it had stopped mid-beat, but she willed it back into a rhythm.

Marshall must've noticed her hesitation, because he squeezed her hand and she felt him try to pull her back, but she didn't let him. Mary tried to remind herself that, when the DVD had first gone in, she'd been ecstatic – elated. She wanted to hold onto that feeling, to finish what she'd started.

"You sure you don't want me to put it away?" the chief whispered stealthily.

She wasn't certain, but she could do her best, "I'm sure."

Light flooded her being as she strolled all the way into view, everyone else more or less where she had left them. Alice and Max on the sofa, Robyn and Norah flanking Brandi, Knox looking sleepy on the floor. Mary's eyes scanned their faces, and each said something so common, but so vastly different as well.

Alice's head was leaning on the armrest, almost as though she was about to grow bored with the world in which she had not resided, but her mother noticed she kept alert, not wanting to miss a second. Max was his usual tranquil self, but he sat at the edge of the cushions, eyes nearly unblinking, soaking up a part of his childhood that had been so happy, but with nothing he could recall.

Norah and Robyn, at thirteen and twelve, suddenly looked more like the twins they had appeared as little girls, images enhanced by their identical selves on the screen. Mary could tell just by the gleam in Norah's orbs that she was enthralled; she clung to the ancient time like a life preserver, letting it drain into her skin and bones. Her smile was broader and more genuine than Robyn's, whose grin was slightly softer and more cautious. Suddenly, Mary felt a connection to her pageant-queen niece. She, of all the children, would understand how much her aunt missed Jinx.

Marshall wandered away, not wishing to hover and send up red flags that what they'd been doing in the bathroom was anything for anyone to be concerned with. In his absence, the blonde found herself migrating toward Brandi, who had taken a step away from the girls and was peering at the picture with dewy-eyed affection.

"Weren't they adorable?" she stated in her sandpapery voice.

"Yeah. Buttons, all of 'em," Mary concurred, but somewhat half-heartedly.

"Well, you were pretty cute too," Brandi teased. "Belly and all."

The elder sister didn't say anything to this. The younger Shannon might be her typical naive self, but with Marshall gone, her body was still aching for a tiny snatch of comfort. Without really meaning to, her arm looped around Brandi's back and her chin dropped onto her shoulder, eyes on the television the entire time.

Brandi didn't miss the abnormal appearance of warmth from her big sister and turned her head to the side, no doubt spotting Mary's waterlogged eyes and rosy cheeks.

"Are you okay?"

It didn't come out sounding insulting, funnily enough. And, Mary appreciated Brandi keeping her voice down. It was why she didn't jerk away in an instant. Brandi, like Robyn, would understand too.

"Yep," she said frankly.

"Really?"

"Mmm hmm."

But, Mary hanging all over Brandi wasn't customary, and apparently this was a rule in their relationship that was impossible to forget. To block further questions, the older determined to open up, if only by a fraction.

"I'm turning into one of those gag-worthy moms in the Hallmark commercials," she mused. "You know. All that, 'they grow up so fast,' garbage."

There was no sense in mentioning Jinx who, thankfully, seemed to be back behind the camera and could no longer be seen.

"It's hard to believe they were ever that small," Brandi agreed. "And mom. She's more beautiful than I remembered."

So, Mary hadn't had to bring her up, but they got to talk about her anyway. That was just as well.

"She is," the inspector murmured. "You know you look like her a little bit."

"You think so?"

"Kind of," she modified. "Especially with the kids. You get that same goofy grin she used to."

"She was a nut for the kids…"

And, even without being able to see her any longer, Mary knew without hesitation that this had absolutely been the case. All of a sudden, she could hardly blame Norah – or Robyn, or any of the kids for that matter – for any pining they might still feel for their late grandmother. How often did you come across that kind of unconditional adoration? Jinx had done nothing but give and give and give to the children, not just in trinkets and treasures, but with her heart, her patience, her unconventional wisdom, and her art. There were few that could make you feel so unique, so rare.

Mary had the sincere, if faint, hope that she did that for her girls at least once in awhile, the way Jinx had been able to do so effortlessly, no exertion required.

The sound seemed to fade as Mary watched the last pictures of the film warble before her eyes – Norah bouncing on the couch in her socks, Robyn crashing into furniture doing her pirouettes, Max toddling in the bottom corner silently chewing his grapes, Mary lumbering in and out of the frame, Alice cradled safely within. They'd been busy and joyful but, more importantly, they'd been one. A unit. A team.

" _Wave goodbye, my dears – I have to power off; the battery's dying…!"_

" _Farewell, dah-lings!"_ fingers fluttering and blowing kisses.

" _Bye!"_ an arm from inside a jersey

" _B'wye-b'wye…"_ a sweet trill from below

" _Turn that thing off…"_

And, on cue, there was nothing but black.

XXX

 **A/N: I know I keep rehashing the Norah thing…I wish I had thought of a different turn to take in more chapters. Something will happen down the line, but you do have to wait for it.**


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N: Thanks a million to Jayne Leigh, whose recent reviews put me over 100!**

 **Having said that, this is not my favorite chapter. I stirred up a plot that I do not expand on, something I try not to do, but it ended up in here anyway. I was just trying to get some Stan in. ;)**

XXX

Marshall would never admit it to anyone but himself, but his concerns for their rapidly-maturing children almost outweighed Mary's. It was in his job description to be the stoic, stable one in their relationship, though, and so it was imperative that he keep his dwellings to himself. As he might say to his wife, worrying would not cause anything except more worry. It was unproductive unless action could somehow be taken. And, as they couldn't move any further in that department after the introduction of Knox, it was best to sail along for now. Sometimes, 'come what may' really was the best attitude you could have.

Nonetheless, Marshall couldn't help deliberating as he went about his Wednesday morning – bidding Mary farewell as she went on a longer-than-usual trek to check on a witness, rushing Norah off to school and promising Knox would be fine, telling Alice that her stomach didn't hurt and she couldn't avoid a math test forever. All things he had grown accustomed to in his thirteen odd years as a dad, or at least a step-dad, as he would be quick to point out to Mary.

And, although he missed his wife when they weren't sharing the Sunshine Building, if only for a morning, he was slightly grateful for only the company of Stan as they shared their lunch hour in his office. Both were digging into deli sandwiches, a staple since there was a place right around the corner, Marshall crunching a bag of chips, Stan nibbling at a chocolate chip cookie. If Mary had been there, she'd have devoured his pickle and most of his drink, so he couldn't mourn her absence too heartily.

Wiping his fingers on his napkin and swallowing, Stan kept their conversation flowing with something casual; although there was no telling if it would stay that way. These were both men that did not like to rock the boat, although Marshall had always been more comfortable with emotion than his former boss was, who tended to blush and fumble in such situations.

"How's the dog working out?" he asked, for he had been present the day Marshall had retrieved Knox from the shelter.

"Pretty well," he informed him, attention straying for a moment toward an incoming e-mail on his computer, but it was one he could ignore. "Today is the first time we've left him by himself, so ask me again tomorrow," a smirk. "But, he's out in the yard since it's a nice day. I'm gonna go check on him around two if I can get away."

"He hasn't scraped up your floors like nails on a blackboard yet?" Stan questioned with a knowing look, well aware that this had been one of Mary's gripes.

"Not so far," Marshall was happy to report. "Norah loves him, so that is a huge plus. The only drawback is that it's even harder to get her to school now than it was before."

"Mmm," the other hummed with a slight wince, knowing the problem this posed. "I'm just wondering, maintenance-wise, if he's been a hassle."

"No more so than any other dog of his age and temperament," Marshall stated as though he were an expert. "And, certainly less than a puppy would've been." Shooting the deputy an offhand look, "Why do you ask?"

It seemed Stan wasn't overly interested in saying. He fidgeted awkwardly in his seat, compulsively straightening his suit jacket, which Marshall found somewhat amusing. This behavior gave away far more than an easy, 'just curious' would've done. It was funny to him that a man of such caliber and cunning could be cracked open as easily as a circus peanut. Apparently, Stan's evasiveness was reserved for the job alone, and not his personal life; he could turn it on and off like a switch.

But, Marshall just smirked at the display and shook his head.

"You have me stumped, that is for sure," he took a chomping bite of his pickle, feeling the juice dribble around the corners of his mouth. "Come on, you know I'm going to badger you until I get it out of you, so you might as well 'fess up now."

"It is true what they say about married couples," Stan mused in order to stall for time. "They do start to look alike after awhile."

Marshall knew this referred to his ability to prod the other man along when he clearly just wanted to forget having shown his hand – a trait that he had most certainly picked up from Mary over the years.

"I would say you should just count yourself lucky that she'd not here with me," the chief reminded him. "You never could handle the double-team."

"So, not only are you going to pester me, you're going to insult me too?"

"As Mary's better half, I'd say it's only fair I do her nosing skills justice," he sounded diplomatic on purpose, like he was doing the both of them a service. "So, spill. I've never known you to be much of a dog person, so what's up?"

Stan hemmed and hawed for another minute or two, making quite a production of folding up his half-eaten bag of chips and inspecting his cookie for missed chocolate chips a little too thoroughly. Marshall was patient, feeding him a wily smirk the entire time, which only produced irritated glances, something that just made him dig in deeper. For all of Marshall's intuition, he really didn't have a clue where this was headed, but that just made it all the more interesting.

Finally, the bald one shrugged nonchalantly, eyes on the desktop the entire time.

"I think seeing Knox has kind of got Lia itching for a companion of her own."

Marshall came back at once, "And, why would you keep that a secret?"

"I don't know…" he muttered, color rising in his cheeks. "Because it means I'll probably give in."

"Is that a bad thing?" the taller questioned. "Do you not want a dog?"

"I could handle a dog," Stan amended. "But, a dog would just be a buffer."

"For what?"

All of a sudden, Marshall knew what Stan was going to say before the words escaped, and he wished he could take his inquiry back. Stan was like his father, or else a wise older brother, and they were very close, but he knew how the deputy could be about the intricate workings of one's mind and heart. He would sputter and become ill at ease and the whole thing would be terribly embarrassing for both of them.

But, it was too late now.

"A baby."

The current chief did not bother to hide his surprise, "A _baby?_ " even if it was a little indecent sounding. "You two? But, Stan, you're…"

This bluntness was really much more like Mary, and he stopped himself in time, but Stan seemed to have guessed what he'd been about to say.

"Old," he supplied dismally.

"No, that's not what I…"

"Yes, it was," he interrupted. "And, it's okay. I don't blame you. I am old. _Way_ too old to become a dad."

To Marshall, it appeared as though Stan were writing the notion off without really considering it, which made it less astonishing to think about it. Mary would've been having a field day – first Mark, and then Stan? But, judging by the man's outlook, he was not invested in finding out if he could have a child before he reached retirement age. Marshall wondered if this had become a sore point between he and Lia – had she wanted to become a mother years ago and her husband had always rebuffed her? That was certainly possible.

"It's stupid of me to think a dog is going to appease her," he grumbled dismally. "But, I know she's disappointed we never had kids. I think she's accepted it, but I'd like to make her feel better about it…"

"Has this come up recently?" Marshall wondered aloud, forgetting all about his lunch.

"Well, sort of…" Stan sighed. "She's just so in love with her students; she practically breaks the windshield getting to work every day. She comes home, and those girls are all she talks about. I can't help but think she feels like she missed out on something…"

"But, did she actually say that?"

"No…"

"Well, then maybe she has made her peace with it." When Stan didn't look all together cheered, Marshall had a sudden hunch. "But, that doesn't mean you have."

It was going out on a limb to make an assumption like this, to think that Stan had been withholding this deep desire all these years. As far as Marshall knew, he didn't take to kids that well, minus the ones he was close to like Norah and the rest. For some reason, he doubted the shorter was really languishing for something like this, but that didn't mean he didn't have regrets. They all had a few, along with the bones buried in the closet. No one was completely devoid of aspirations, even impossible ones.

Deciding that they would probably be here all afternoon if he didn't nudge things along, Marshall stuck his neck out once again, hoping Stan wouldn't resent him for it.

"Do you really feel like your life would be more satisfying if you'd had children?"

This was a loaded question, and Marshall hadn't meant to make it sound so ominous and dramatic. Stan seemed to consider at first, but it didn't take him long to have out with his true feelings. Perhaps he'd just been blowing off steam and had opened his mouth too soon; it appeared this whole topic had been brought up on a whim – nothing to lose sleep over.

"I guess not…" he asserted, but not entirely persuasively. "Not really. It's just one of those things you think about as you get older." And then, changing tack, "But, I don't know why. They always say family isn't about blood. I don't want to get into a sob fest or anything here, but I always kind of thought you and Mary were the kids I never had."

Touching didn't begin to describe this assertion, but Marshall did what he could to keep the other man's request in line – no tears or hugging or hand-holding. In the back of his mind, he wondered how Mary would've reacted to such a declaration – brushed it off, most likely. But, as a woman who had never really had a father, Marshall liked to think she would've been glad to know there was another man in her life who wanted to fill the role.

"Well, I'd say that isn't too far off…" he tried not to sound at all choked up. "I mean, you know how to lay down the law, you know when to point your finger and say, 'knock it off.' But, you're also intensely protective – nobody breaks down these gates without going through you first," gesturing toward the doors that separated the office from the elevator. "If that isn't 'dad' material, then what is?"

"Sounds like I missed my calling…"

"It's not like that," Marshall disproved. "It's unconventional, maybe, but Mary and I have figured out that we're kind of the unconventional types. You fit right in."

"It can just get complicated – being on the outside looking in," he offered. "Knowing you're family, but also knowing you aren't…"

"Don't ever doubt what you are to us," Marshall was serious as he stressed this boldly. "DNA or not. But…" Not wanting Stan to feel completely isolated, he teed up some insecurities of his own. "I do know what you mean. I just talked to Mary about this last night. It's hard to feel like you might take someone's place without meaning to, and yet sort of wanting to at the same time…"

"That wasn't your most poetic, inspector."

"Chief," Marshall emphasized with a joking grin. "I'm just saying…" he swallowed, abandoning his computer entirely to focus on Stan. "All this stuff with Mark lately – he is not exactly Norah's favorite person. And, both she and Mary have tried to kind of shove me into his role, and I'd prefer not to go there…"

"But, you know you've been as much of a dad to her as he has."

"Even so…" he wanted to ward the idea away. "It's like this conference we have tonight with Norah's teachers. Mary really wants me to be there, and I wouldn't dream of not attending, but if it turns out she's having issues, what is my place in dealing with it?"

"You deal with it how Mary deals with it," was Stan's sound advice. "You're a team."

"Together, we are," he agreed. "But, we're not the parents – not officially. It should really be up to her and Mark."

"Don't you think you should just cross that bridge when you come to it?"

"I suppose I could…" Marshall let out a slow exhale. "You can't tell Mary this, but I don't want to end up being the bad guy. It's selfish, but it's true. I think about the way she and Norah look at Jill, and I shudder to think of either of them viewing me with such contempt…

"Marshall," the older cut in seriously, clearly relieved that they had shifted the focus onto him and off his own fleeting urge for parenthood. "Mary regarding you with anything even closely resembling 'contempt' is absurd. You may argue and butt heads sometimes, but I can't imagine a world where she thinks you're beneath her."

"She used to," the younger couldn't resist pointing out, not wanting to center in on that time in his life, but it couldn't be ignored either. "Back in the days of yore when we were partners."

"She didn't," Stan wagged his head assertively. "She pretended to, but it was a cover. Come on, Marshall – you're an intelligent guy. If anything, she was intimidated by you, and that's why she acted like you were nothing but a bookish nerd."

"You know she still thinks that," the other man reminded him with a small smile. "Some things never change."

"So, how could you end up being the bad guy?" at this point, Stan seemed to remember his meal, and he polished off his cookie in two bites waiting for Marshall to answer. "Mary's wild about you, Norah adores you…"

"It's Norah that I'm afraid of," it was who everyone was fearful of anymore. "We've always been so close, but if she keeps on her current kick or, worse, it escalates, I can't go on just being her friend. I'm going to have to be a parent; I can't leave Mary hanging as the taskmaster while I sit on the sidelines for my own sake…"

"What, on the off chance Norah 'won't like you' anymore?" the arching air quotes Stan sketched around the specific phrase highlighted just how juvenile it was for the chief to think in those terms, but he did. "I think that's wasted energy, Marshall. Nothing stays sacred forever, and Norah's not a little girl anymore. You know you have to come to terms with the fact that there will come a day when she thinks you're something less than perfect."

For a man who was not an actual father, the bald one sure knew a thing or two about what life with an adolescent could be like. It was true that Stan might've just been throwing out conjecture to avoid talking about his odd whim concerning him and Lia's lack of offspring. But, his words certainly held a great deal of merit, even if it was tough for Marshall to digest.

He didn't honestly believe Norah thought he hung the moon – not anymore. He was flawed, and she was always quick to point out people's defects as of late. Nonetheless, he had not appeared to be fair game even in her constantly sour mood. Without meaning to be, he was her safe haven – the one she ran to when she felt herself beginning to twirl like an out-of-control top. He ached when he thought of losing that place in her life, if only temporarily. But, Stan was right. She was no longer a child; she'd rebelled against everyone, and he could only be next on the list.

In fact, the parent-teacher conference might be what sent her over the edge, especially if the information they received from her many educators wasn't favorable.

"I don't know…" he scratched his nails through his hair, making it stick up like badly mown grass, an image he caught in the reflection of his computer screen. "You'll never hear me say I regret having kids, Stan – never…"

"I know that…" he said gently, not needing a detailed explanation, because he sensed it was a preface of bigger confessions to come.

"But, this is one of those instances you should be glad you don't have to finagle," harking back to the actuality that Stan possessed no biological family. "Grades and essays and teachers and lockers and gym clothes and gossip and puberty…"

"Yeah, I think I got enough of puberty the first time around," Stan chuckled in an uncomfortable way, brown eyes automatically straying toward the floor. "Going through it again doesn't exactly sound like a party, especially from the female perspective."

"Well, Mary avoids discussing it at all costs," Marshall let slip, knowing his wife would not appreciate him revealing this. "I wonder if it isn't what has Norah so riled, though – between that and all the upheaval with Mark."

Stan did not say anything to this, merely took a few more bites of his sandwich, which was probably just as well. It gave Marshall time to deliberate before he went on, chewing his bread slowly and scrolling his monitor through a few more e-mails that had come in. Though he tried to read, even skim, the words, his brain didn't take anything in. It was rooted firmly on Norah and all the changes she might be experiencing that she was likely keeping to herself – either too embarrassed or horrified to bring them up, even with her mother.

What did girls of thirteen have to gain when it came to the locker room – or lose, as the case might have been? Bodies and undergarments and young minds that could often be obsessed with anything having to do with sex was a tricky business with boys as well as girls. But, Marshall immediately directed his thoughts elsewhere; he wouldn't dwell on Norah in that way, but more the idea as a whole. And, he certainly wasn't going to bring it up any further with Stan. Mary would shoot him dead if she knew they'd even gone this far.

But, to his utter shock, Stan actually continued the conversation, although vaguely and with a lot of twitching.

"Has Mary talked to her about that stuff at all?"

"She says she has," Marshall admitted. "And, I believe her. But, I also know that she's not going to do it again if she can help it. And, anyway…" veering away as best he could. "I just really imagine that there is some sort of disconnect at school, be it in academics or with her peers. With any luck, her teachers will provide some insight tonight."

"Does she get along with the other kids?" Stan asked curiously.

"I'm not sure," the other man whispered, but his tone said he had a pretty good idea. "But, she tends not to mention anyone specific. I don't think that's a good sign."

"Maybe she had a falling out with someone," he suggested. "Someone she used to be tight with, and it really went south – kids are so brutal at that age, so unforgiving."

"They definitely can be," Marshall concurred. "Especially if Norah had some kind of disagreement and it was spread around – giving people the opportunity to take sides and whatnot."

"I don't know how much teachers notice that stuff, though," Stan sounded dreary at the thought. "You might have to buff up that badge of yours and put your inspector skills to work, my friend. Read between the lines of whatever they tell you tonight. And then, part of being the bad cop might be really rooting around in Norah's business." When Marshall looked scandalized, he didn't back down, "Sometimes you have to do what's best for your kids, even if they give you crap about it."

This had Marshall thinking about all the times Stan had pissed off he and Mary – well, Mary, especially – because he'd put his foot down, gotten involved when they'd wanted nothing more for him to step back, or implanted his unbridled concern no matter how the female despised being fussed over. And, they both might've been aggravated – or, in Mary's case, threatened to quit – but, he'd never steered them down a dangerous road. He'd known right from wrong and made sure they knew it too. He really was their dad.

"You sure you're not up for adopting a little cherub from Haiti or China to flex your fatherly muscles?" he teased because he didn't know how else to express his admiration of Stan's advice. "Because, I know you're right, even if I don't like it."

Stan chortled, "I would really love it if you could forget I even brought that up," he requested. "I honestly don't know what I was thinking. The baby thing was not a genuine aspiration – for me or for Lia, really."

"You're not pulling my leg?" flattening his hair back down with a devious grin.

"I swear," the other gave a more raucous laugh this time, although it was a little shaky and brought red to his cheeks. "Honestly, I feel grateful to be even a small part of _your_ family. You guys and your little rascals and my wonderfully zany wife are all I need."

And, clearly hoping that Marshall would drop this, he held up his cup from the deli, lid, straw, and all, and invited his fellow law man to toast. Taking the hint, the taller retrieved his own drink and clunked it together with his. Both took long sips, and Marshall did feel confident that his former boss wasn't lying in bed at night dreaming about newborn babies. It was as he had said – simply a concept you mulled over as you inched past sixty if you'd never had a litter of your own. He wouldn't hold it against Stan, nor would be sharing it with Mary. Some things needed to stay between the guys.

"I will drink to that," Marshall finished when he had nearly drained his beverage dry.

"We can drink to a positive meeting for you this evening too, if you'd like."

"I think we might need actual alcohol for that one," Marshall was uncharacteristically pessimistic. "I'll float the idea with Mary; see if she can slip some beers into her bag."

"You really think it'll be that painful?"

"Well, Alice's wasn't," trying to put a better spin on it. "So, I suppose there's hope. But, I just don't have the same feeling about Norah – I wish to God that I did."

"Marshall, whatever they say, you know that you and Mary will find a way to handle it," Stan was definite, his dark eyes probing, but sweet – very paternal. "The two of you can conquer anything. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I really don't know," Marshall didn't want to anticipate too harshly. "That her grades are slipping, that she's a loner, that she's flying into rages in the hallways just like she does at home…"

"You are well aware that you would've known long before now if something like that was happening," Stan rationalized. "Norah may be struggling a bit, but I really don't think she's so far gone that she can't be pulled back."

"I guess we'll find out tonight."

"The verdict on her future is not going to be determined at this conference – remember that," Stan urged.

"I hope Mary feels the same way you do."

"She will if you help her to," he insisted. "So long as you two stick together, there is nothing those teachers can throw at you that is going to knock you – or Norah – down for the long haul."

"But…"

And, before Marshall could argue, "Father knows best, _inspector_ ," with a wink. "Father knows best."

XXX

 **A/N: Stan and Lia and a baby is supposed to be a fleeting thought and nothing more. Not my finest work on this one, but that's the way it goes sometimes.**


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N: I don't cut Norah a lot of slack in this chapter. It's not supposed to be as black and white as it ended up sounding – it's more that Mary sees it in black and white, because that's how Mary is.**

XXX

If Mary had an aversion toward elementary schools, she didn't have a clue what to call the sensation she got being in a middle school. Grade school did not comprise her shining years, it was true, but there had always been more of an effort to help a bullying little girl with the runaway dad and the drunken mom. If not for here sake, than for baby Brandi's. Mary well remembered those times as she moved through the grades – mothers fawning over her toothless little sister and whispering how tragic it all was, calling her a 'sad case' and murmuring that she 'acted out' because of what was going on at home, being passed from teacher to teacher because nobody wanted her for more than one year. It hadn't been pretty, but at least those educators had pretended to care, even if they didn't really.

Not the case once Mary had arrived in middle school. The work got harder, Brandi entered kindergarten which gave the older Shannon a full time job, and sympathy had reached its limit. Teachers no longer gave a damn where Mary came from; if she mouthed off or didn't turn her homework in, she got read the riot act and sent to detention. There was no wiggle room, no place for debate.

And, right now, staring at the four serious faces on the other side of a long wooden table, Mary couldn't help feeling that things hadn't changed much since she'd been a seventh grader. Unlike with Alice, she had never had the pleasure of being introduced to these individuals, but the best of guesses could probably have her right on the money as to who they were, just from Norah's stories alone.

On the far left had to be Mr. Perkins, the grumpy English teacher who frowned upon reading ahead and writing without commas. He fit Norah's descriptions exactly – wire-rimmed glasses, going thin on top, a weedy frame and a narrow face with a faded blue shirt and a tweed jacket. The pursed-lip look on his face did not invite Mary to ask any questions.

Next to him was likely Mr. Lacey, man of fractions and decimals, the one Norah claimed 'hated her.' He was younger than Mr. Perkins, but still probably in his forties, and he was not dressed for the occasion. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt with the school's name spelled across it, a whistle around his neck. He wasn't a math teacher, Mary thought with scorn. He was a coach.

The only woman in the group sat on his other side – Mrs. Moffett, the science whiz. She was heavyset, with a plump face and large hands, but she had soft features and a neutral look on her face. Mary did not yet fear her the way she did the others.

And, on the end had to be Norah's social studies teacher, but Mary realized with a sudden jolt that she didn't know his name. Why this hadn't struck her as odd before now, she couldn't be sure, because Norah loved history, and surely she would've had something to say about this man, be it good or bad. He was strikingly young; it wouldn't have surprised Mary to learn he was just out of college. His baby face looked eager and his brown hair was styled so that it stuck up just slightly on top. He wore a suit, which the mother found slightly funny; this was a conference, not dinner at the opera.

And so, regarding them all with a critical eye, Marshall on one side of her and Mark on the other, Mary tried to prepare herself for war. They were sequestered in a history classroom, rows of desks lined up behind them, and the space was clammy and not entirely well-lit. The Marshal did her best not to feel as though she was in a prison cell.

It was Mrs. Moffett that spoke first. Perhaps the males had designated her the emcee of this little soiree.

"So…Miss Norah…" the science teacher began with a lighthearted chuckle that did not fool Mary for a second. "Where do we want to start?" she looked to her companions to share at any time.

There was an awkward silence when no one offered any information, which Mary found to be slightly infuriating. These people were professionals. Hadn't they done this hundreds of times before? What had them clamming up when it came to Norah?

Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending upon your point of view – Mr. Perkins cleared his throat in due time, indicating he would be the first to launch in.

"Well…" he started in a voice that was gravelly and weary, like the discussion was already tiring him before they'd even gotten it off the ground. "I find Norah to be a very intelligent student. Her literacy skills are far above her grade level, although her comprehension can sometimes be weak…"

Mary narrowed her eyebrows and bit on her lip to keep from snarling in his face, waiting to see what he came out with next.

"She is often more interested in finishing than she is in completing the work properly."

"Can you elaborate on that?" Marshall inquired politely before Mary could butt in.

"I have told her on numerous occasions to move at the pace of the group, and she continually chooses to do as she wishes," he didn't sound angry, merely bored, which for some reason made Mary madder. "Sometimes this comes in the form of ignoring my directions, or becoming argumentative."

The blonde's heart sank clear into her stomach. She wanted so much to defend Norah to these stuff-shirts, but how could she? Regardless of the tight ass Mr. Perkins so clearly was, authority was authority; she needed to do what she was told. Where had she gotten the idea she could mouth off?

"Does this happen frequently?" Mark elbowed his way in.

"I suppose it depends on your definition of 'frequently,'" Mr. Perkins wheezed. "But, too often for my liking, at any rate. I have no complaints of her grades; academically, she is sound. But, I have awarded her extra homework several times because she has made the decision not to listen. It is the consequence I choose for students that are disrespectful, rather than placing them in detention."

Well, that explained why Norah had not come home with as many pink slips as Robyn, but this didn't make her feel any better. She thought back to the homework over 'Johnny Tremain' where her daughter had struggled to understand the directions. Could this have been a punishment piece, and she'd fabricated that story about Mr. Perkins being unwilling to answer any questions? It seemed likely.

The English teacher suddenly deflected, apparently through with his negativity, "I am not aware if she displays this behavior in other classes, but…" his eyes ventured to the others down the row, indicating that they should pick up the thread.

Unfortunately, Mr. Basketball didn't hesitate to chime in.

"Norah is very bright," the math jock piped up. "I have praised her many times because I think she is great with numbers; everything seems to click for her." Mary knew this couldn't last, and she was right. "But, I do find her to be moody more often than not. Some days she comes in ready to work and others she sits in the far corner and refuses to participate."

Mary ached for somebody to say that this was a hallmark of teenagers, that it was nothing they should worry about, but knew in her heart she was wrong. Teenagers often chose to sulk and not raise their hands. They didn't all get up in a teacher's face and spar with them, and she just waited to hear that English wasn't the only place Norah did this.

"I have no doubt she is a lovely girl, but she can be extremely uncooperative."

Did he need to add the 'extremely?' Did he really?

"In what ways?" Marshall asked quietly, sparing his wife the trouble.

"We do a lot of group work in math," Mr. Lacey explained. "She often refuses to work in the group where I place her, which means if she never joins that she can't have a score for the assignment, and then I am forced to dock her grade. There are times she doesn't have her homework in on time, and when I tell her I cannot accept it late, she becomes defensive. I had to send her to the hall last week because of it."

Mary felt she was going to be sick. Was this really her child? To have expected a report similar to Alice's seemed suddenly ridiculous. How could it be that one daughter understood that there was a place for drama and knew when to call it quits, and the other did not? Not only that, the older and supposedly more mature one couldn't get her act together. It wasn't fair to compare, and Mary knew it, but she thought back to how Norah had been at Alice's age and she knew without hesitation that a teacher never would've had such grievances to share.

Where had they gone wrong? How had things gone so south so quickly, and right under their noses? Had it been dumb of Mary to think Norah got to school and pasted a smile on for the benefit of teachers and peers she didn't even like?

Weak in the knees, she reached for Marshall's hand beneath the table and squeezed it roughly. He compressed in return, using his free one to pat the top of her knuckles. She needed the show of comfort, especially considering what came next.

"I haven't run into this quite as much," Mrs. Moffett articulated in a kind voice, which made Mary want to hug her. "But, I can't say it hasn't come up. Norah can be so very sweet, and that is a rarity at this age. But, her mood swings are concerning. If you wouldn't mind my asking, is there something going on at home that could be attributing to this?"

Four sets of eyes bored into the three parents, and Mary found herself glaring without even thinking about it, first at them, and then at Mark, who was shifting so uncomfortably it looked like he was a little kid trying to keep from wetting his pants. His ex hadn't offered her input so far and now wasn't the time to begin. This was Mark's doing. He could own up to it.

"Well, Norah had a hard time adjusting to middle school last year…" he gave a preview, and Marshall was nice enough to back him up.

"It has been a tough transition for her."

"But, recently, she has had to undergo a few more changes." With Mary's eyes narrowed into his skull, he went on, "I just became engaged and informed Norah that she has a sibling on the way. We'll also be relocating to a new house in a few months."

Perhaps the team wasn't trying to exchange knowing, superior glances, but Mary thought that was exactly what they were doing. Well, except for the young man on the end of the row, whose brown eyes looked somewhat sad and sympathetic upon hearing the news. He was the only one who hadn't said anything so far, but Mary couldn't fathom, look of compassion or not, that his account of Norah's behavior would be much better than anyone else's.

And, although introductions had been made at the opening of the conference, it seemed the lone female wanted to make sure she had all her facts straight.

"You're divorced, that's correct?" Mrs. Moffett directed this assumption at Mark with a small jerk of her head toward Mary.

"Well, yes, but…"

"For how long?" she interjected.

Mary saw where this was going. Mrs. Moffett thought she had them all figured out – Norah was throwing fits because mommy and daddy were no longer a couple. What a load. Mary was glad she was going to have the opportunity to set her straight, opening her mouth for the first time since entering.

"We were never married," the woman broke in, and she knew instantly she sounded mulish.

"That's not totally true," Mark whispered into her ear as if the quad before them could not hear every word.

"We were married once, when I was seventeen," Mary corrected herself, rolling her eyes as she did so. Without waiting for anybody to assume she was only thirty years old, "For about thirty-six hours, mind you, the fat lady sang, and that was that. Norah has never known us as a couple."

"I see," Mr. Perkins' already thin lips went even thinner as he surveyed them.

If they were going to be judged, Mary decided she might as well go all the way with this. It was really none of their business, and they did not possess the air that they wanted to help, but she figured little harm could come from airing their dirty laundry. What else could shock them? Having babies out of wedlock was about as bad as it got.

"Marshall and I married when Norah was six," she wasn't going to sound ashamed about it either.

"Does she have any siblings?" Mrs. Moffett wanted to know, perhaps remembering what Mark had said about expecting another bundle of joy.

"A sister that's almost seven," Marshall revealed. "Alice. She's my daughter."

"I wasn't aware," the science teacher voiced curiously. "Norah's never mentioned a sister."

And, if Mary wasn't feeling badly enough already, this was sure to shoot her down another ten feet. After attending Alice's conference with Miss Whitmore and learning that she idolized her big sister's very being, she came here to find that Norah as much as pretended that Alice did not even exist. Mary, as a mother, tried to be so understanding, to give her children the benefit of the doubt or to empathize with them in ways that she felt her parents had never done with her.

But, how could she identify with this? Aside from being smart, Norah was sinking further and further beneath the surface of the earth. Another month or so, and she might plummet into darkness completely. She didn't listen. She didn't collaborate. She practically sleepwalked through her days like a zombie, little to no regard for the others around her. By all accounts, she didn't even try.

Her family, it seemed, was not even worth mentioning – not just Alice, but all of them. She hadn't told a single teacher that she lived with her mother and step-father, that her dad was remarrying, that she was moving, even that she had a goofy, slobbery dog to drool over in the afternoon hours?

Red hot anger at her daughter bubbled to the apex of her brain to the point where Mary felt like a volcano about to erupt. She would clamp down on her emotions as best she could, but the more she ruminated about Norah's actions, the more furious she became. These teachers were of no assistance, it was true, but the lack of effort on her child's part was galling. How could she sit idly by and let everything come apart? Mary thought of how she had scraped by as a teenager, how she'd fought tooth and nail to keep her head above water, and here was Norah who didn't seem to give a damn whether she drowned or not.

Marshall must've been able to tell that she was becoming agitated, because he spoke into the quiet before his wife could. They didn't need any kind of showdown on their hands.

"I like to think I speak for both Mary and Mark when I say that we are cognizant of the fact that Norah's behavior is unacceptable," he sounded like a public service announcement for performance reform. "We apologize that she has been so difficult as of late."

Mary crossed her arms over her chest as he laid out the fine print; gnawing so hard on the inside of her cheek she was soon likely to taste blood.

"We are open to suggestions as to what she – or we – can do to improve her outlook," only Marshall would accept all responsibility like this. "We really want her to enjoy coming to school, and right now the chances of that seem fairly slim."

Mrs. Moffett was the one to respond, "Don't put too much pressure on yourself, Mr.…"

"Mann," he put forth without blinking.

"Mr. Mann," she repeated. "Norah is not the first to go through a thorny phase, and she won't be the last. Something I would recommend, and my colleagues can back me up on this…" looking briefly to the three men for support. "…Is getting Norah involved in an extracurricular activity; it might help her to form a few relationships…"

So they'd noticed it too, Mary thought scornfully. The confirmation hit her like a punch to the gut. Her child was friendless; there was not a soul in the building that could stand the sight of her. It was as physically painful as if it was happening to her, and she'd never even had much use for companionship.

"I see that right now she's involved in art and a computer class," Mrs. Moffett powered on, consulting a copy of Norah's schedule in front of her. "Is there anything you think she might like that would allow her to make a connection with her peers?"

"She used to play baseball," Mark offered up meekly.

"Well, softball," Marshall amended. "Once she outgrew tee-ball," he added. "But, it's not exactly the season for it…"

"I had heard that," Mr. Lacey, whistle and all, brought up. "And, I approached her early in the year about joining a little off-season league I coach, but she didn't seem interested."

Now Mary was flabbergasted as well as upset. Norah had never said anything about being asked to continue playing baseball. Why hadn't she agreed on the spot? As far as Mary knew, she still loved anything to do with bats and gloves; she watched on TV all the time. It was true that she didn't have many people to play with anymore, but if she could convince Max to toss a ball around with her, she was entertained for hours. Why would she pass up an offer like that?

More and more, the inspector was beginning to feel that this daughter, like her other one, was a complete alien. What on earth had happened to drive her girls to such opposite poles, to root them so firmly in characters that Mary did not even recognize? First Alice, and then Norah.

The thought was enough to make her want to cry, but that wasn't the sensation she was experiencing at the moment. Her ire was still too strong to be ignored, and she was going to be a virtual geyser when she got home and unloaded on Norah herself. She didn't anticipate it would be pretty.

"Well, we can talk with her about something she might like to try," Marshall promised, his hand now almost in severs beneath the table from Mary choking it to death. "Maybe if she had a group to hang out with, she wouldn't be so prone to clashing with all of you."

"It's worth a try," Mrs. Moffett insisted. "And, as far as everything occurring with your family, do you anticipate that the situation will settle down soon?"

"We're hopeful," Marshall reciprocated, not consulting Mary or Mark on this. "If you'd like, we can keep you updated on how Norah's doing at home, kind of give you a head's up if we think she might have a bad day…"

The educators were nodding, but Mary didn't like the sound of this at all. Was she going to turn into one of those helicopter parents that monitored and scrutinized their child's every move? Norah would hate it, and she wasn't going to be too fond of it either. Why couldn't the kid just suck it up? She knew better and could _do_ better. Mary would see to it.

"I intend to make it clear to her that the way she has been conducting herself here is not going to continue," she blurted out in her best Marshal voice, causing raised eyebrows and turned heads from the men on either side of her. "It needs to stop. I'm not going to let it go on."

"We'll definitely talk with Norah…" Mark was a little gentler, looking like he was afraid of his ex-wife's wrath even as he said it. "In the meantime…is…?" he obviously did not want to hear more, but it was the only way to wrap this up. "…Is there anything else we need to know?"

There were a few shrugs and some shuffling of papers, which told Mary they might be in the clear, but that was before Mr. Perkins coughed his way in a third time.

"Brett, you haven't said anything," his slitted eyes traveled down the line to the boy at the end.

Brett, whatever his last name, seemed startled at being asked his opinion. Mary could only guess that this was because he was a novice at teaching, but he should do a better job at hiding his deer-in-the-headlights look. It made him seem incompetent, although no more or less than anybody else in the vicinity.

"Oh…" even his voice sounded like a little kid's, but maybe it was higher pitched than usual because he was nervous. "Well…" He offered a tender smile in the direction of the parents, and it was a little wiggly on the corners, but he managed to hold it in place. "My name is Brett Harrington – I teach social studies."

Mr. Perkins looked as though he wanted to make a derisive remark, something along the lines of, 'they already know that, idiot,' but he just sustained his sour look and stayed silent.

"Norah is in my seventh hour – my last class of the day," he inserted, still with that weirdly giddy smile. "She's an interesting girl, I will say that much for her…" a jittery chuckle accompanied this. "She can be lively, but if I'm being honest, it's not really in a confrontational way."

This certainly came as a surprise to Mary, especially after having heard nothing but crap for the past twenty minutes. She thought it might brighten her spirits, but it didn't. She just assumed this man didn't have a clue what he was talking about; he was probably getting his legs under him still. If three out of four thought Norah was a brat, then that was the general consensus, and too difficult to dispute.

"You don't find her to be argumentative?" the English teacher slipped in icily, almost as though he thought his co-worker to be touched in the head.

"Well, I wouldn't want to speak for everyone," Brett clarified. "But, in my classes, Norah really seems to thrive. She has an aptitude for history, and while I have encouraged her to be more outspoken and to share her ideas a little more, she still comes up with marvelous work…"

"But, she doesn't participate?" Mark queried weakly.

"Well, we're working on it," Mr. Harrington stated casually. "She does tend to shy away in front of the other students, but I can tell how invested she is in the subject. She comes up to me after class and tells me."

"She does?" Marshall was as shocked by this as Mary was. "She talks to you?"

That made one of them.

"We've had some great discussions. She's really delightful."

Delightful? Norah?

Those around Mary seemed to be thinking along the same lines. Mr. Perkins had averted his eyes from Brett, like he was humiliated to have been contradicted this way, even if both of them were telling the truth. Mr. Lacey cleared his throat and Mrs. Moffett flexed her fingers, looking unsure how they should continue, given the disparity of the stories.

Still, three teachers' reports didn't lie, Mary thought savagely. Norah was going to have some explaining to do, and part of her was grateful that Mr. Harrington could be so charitable – that at least _someone_ liked her daughter – but the thankfulness was clouded by the misery. In any case, she didn't believe Brett honestly had an inkling about the girl in his class. He was obviously a first year teacher, and Norah had likely hoodwinked him somehow; she was probably skimping on her homework right under his pretty boy nose.

"Well, Brett, it's good to know that Norah is thriving somewhere," Mrs. Science eventually said. "Perhaps her curiosity with history will lead to other interests – someplace she can shine down the road."

"I still say a plan of action from here on out would be beneficial," Mr. Tweed proclaimed staunchly. "I think daily communication between the four of us as well as the parents until further notice would be helpful for everyone involved. We could write our accounts of Norah's day in her planner, and you all could do the same?"

His eyes were on Mary, Marshall, and Mark, willing them to agree to pen something in the pages of Norah's notebooks about the intimate details of their home life. Mary thought it sucked, but it would be ample punishment for Norah; she would despise everyone sticking their noses into her business. In many ways, this made it worth it. Mary, malicious as she could often be, thought she should pay dearly for having her parents show up here only to hear accounts of her awful inflexibility.

"Why don't we touch base in a few days?" Marshall proposed, not wanting to determine anything without talking to his wife and step-daughter, not to mention Mark. "Would that be okay with you all?"

Mr. Lacey and Mrs. Moffett both nodded, while Mr. Perkins gave a curt, "Yes, I suppose," and Brett shrugged like he was game for whatever anyone else was.

"All right," the chief finished, ending things far more soundly and abruptly than Mary was expecting.

She longed to say more, to plead with them that the Norah they had been teaching was not the real Norah. She craved with an insatiable hunger to tell them that she had raised a good girl – a kind girl, a sweet girl, a girl who would never hurt anyone, a girl who was loved and knew how to love other people. That, once upon a time, she had been the mother of a child that careened off high dives and smacked baseballs and laid hands on her pregnant belly and gave wet goodnight kisses, insisting that she loved you more than you could possibly love her.

But, she didn't say any of that. It made no difference. Whoever Norah had once been, she wasn't that Norah any longer.

XXX

 **A/N: You really are supposed to feel bad for Norah, in spite of her struggles and whatnot! Like I said, it's not supposed to be black and white, but my writing doesn't always convey that in the best way.**


	32. Chapter 32

**A/N: I talk sometimes about chapters I see in my head, chapters that help build the story long before I start the first chapter. This is one of those chapters, but I admit that it was not as clear as a lot of others I have "seen in my head" from the beginning. I'll let you read it (if you're so inclined,) and then expand in the author's notes at the bottom…**

XXX

The first thing that Mary heard when she walked through the front door with Marshall and Mark was screaming. It was already making her head hurt, not that the conference combined with the drive home hadn't done a spectacular job of that already. Through the darkness of the streets, Marshall had attempted to shoot her pointed looks, telling her without words that she should not lose her temper when they got home. But, he couldn't say anything specific with Mark in the backseat. The ex-husband's car was at their house, parked in the drive in order for him to whisk Norah off to his place for a few days. They were trying to get back on their regular visitation schedule, and what with it being Wednesday, the time had come to switch.

However, Mary barely considered how her daughter might react to another few days at her dad's. She was absorbed in all that had gone on at the meeting, trying to determine the best way to lay down the law when she got two seconds alone with her kid. An expert at ignoring Marshall's glances, she wondered if she should include the men in her tirade, or if she should just rip her a new one all by herself. Marshall would try to get her to tone it down, whereas Mark would shuffle around with his hands in his pockets and look awkward. Neither of these 'helpful' reactions was appealing.

But, when the shouting reached her ears the very second she set foot on the threshold, her patience was zapped in a nanosecond. Joanna was supposed to corralling her children for the evening, and despite what were probably her best efforts, Mary knew instantaneously they were going at it like a pair of clawed cats.

"It does _so!"_

"It does not; you're just trying to get attention – you're a big, fat liar!"

"I'm not a liar; _you're_ the liar!"

"Shut up! If I have to eat the asparagus, then so do you! You're such a troll!"

"I am not a troll! They have pink hair and they don't even wear any clothes!"

"Well, considering what _you_ put on most mornings, going naked would probably be an improvement."

"At least I don't dress like a boy! You should cut off all your hair and then you'd be even uglier!"

"You want to see ugly…"

As Mary stepped fully into the living room, she saw with this last statement that Norah looked ready to smack her little sister clear across the face. Neither was typically very violent, although they did jab and poke at each other. Nonetheless, the thought of Norah's hands anywhere near Alice combined with all she had learned about the displays she was putting on at school was enough to have her throttling her all by herself.

But, in spite of her curdling fury, Marshall jumped into the mix before she could, rushing between the sisters with his hands outstretched.

"What is wrong with the two of you?!" he barked, sounding abnormally harsh. Glancing toward the kitchen, he saw two plates of half-eaten dinner in the middle of the island. "Joanna made you supper and you're going to stand here and snap like a couple of two year olds?"

"Where is mom?" Mark wanted to know, eyeing his own daughter with suspicion. "You didn't bind and gag her so you could pull out the weapons, did you?"

"She's in the bathroom," Norah muttered disdainfully.

"Yeah, and for how long?" Mark scoffed. "Two minutes? Is that how long it takes you guys to start going at it?"

"Daddy…" Alice whined before anybody could take bets on how long Joanna had left them alone. Pulling on his coat, her blue eyes shiny and pleading, "My belly hurts so bad. I don't want my dinner."

"Don't listen to a word she says!" Norah bellowed as though her life depended on it, sidestepping her own father to get into Marshall's line of vision. "She's making it up! She's only saying it because I said _my_ stomach hurt earlier."

"My tummy _does_ hurt!" Alice insisted, hanging onto Marshall's jacket like a leech. "I'm not hungry…"

"She's only saying that because she doesn't want to eat vegetables," Norah horned in snootily. "And because she gets _everything_ she wants, and if she bats her eyelashes at grandma for half a second then grandma will give her ice cream and make me eat the rest of her asparagus…"

Marshall chose to ignore Norah, probably because he knew they were going to be having words sooner rather than later, and he didn't want to waste them on this. However, the action he chose to take had the potential to make her just as infuriated as if he laid into her for her complaining.

"You said your belly was bothering you this morning, Big Al," Marshall recalled with some degree of interest. "But, I just thought maybe you were tired."

"I _am_ tired, and it still hurts…" the brunette was glomming on now, her arms wound around her father's legs. "Please don't make me eat, daddy…"

Not making any promises, Marshall slipped his hand underneath Alice's bangs to test her forehead, turning his palm back to front. With his eyebrows furrowed, he tried to determine the temperature, but the way he was babying Alice was evidently too much for Norah.

"I cannot believe you're falling for this!" she exploded, one hand flinging into the open. "She's full of it! _My_ stomach hurt when I got home because we got donuts in my last class and she's just being a dumb old copycat…"

"I'm not a copycat!"

"Marshall, are you for real? You're way smarter than you're acting right…"

But, Mary snapped. The idea that she was going to tear into Marshall, who had never said an unkind word in his life, was the straw that broke the camel's back. The lava that had been threatening to surge forth came flowing out, and she couldn't stop herself. She was powerless to the pent-up antagonism masquerading as worry that she had been concealing for weeks.

"KNOCK IT OFF!"

If she'd wanted to scare Norah, she'd definitely done it. She jumped about a foot in the air, and even Mark flinched. Down the hall, the toilet flushed, but nobody gave Joanna a second thought. Mary's jaw was rigid and her eyes were fixated on Norah, all rational thought going down the drain. She was so mad she could spit.

The teenager, however, was bewildered – or at least pretending to be.

"What did I do?"

"We'll _get_ to what you did," Mary snarled through gritted teeth. And then, just to rub salt in the wound, she turned to the little one, "Alice, you eat what you want, you hear?"

She hadn't meant it to come out so menacing, but Alice didn't seem to take it that way at all. She grinned in a satisfied way from where she was buried in Marshall's pant leg. This was perhaps verification that she had been laying on the sickly routine a little thickly, but this didn't matter to Mary at all. It mattered to Norah, however.

"What the hell?!" she hollered, eyes bugging as Alice tiptoed off to the kitchen to have her pick of food. "If she can pick her dinner, how come I can't?!"

Mary barely let her finish, "Did I not just tell you to stuff it?!"

"Mary…" Marshall's voice sounded distant, in another land, one in which lucid people lived.

"I have had it with this nonsense of yours!" she went on as though she couldn't hear him. "Every two minutes, the sky is falling, and it's everyone's fault but yours! Do you expect to live this way forever, never taking any blame, never accepting responsibility, running around like some petulant brat until you're forty-five?!"

Norah's mouth fell open in horror at being described this way, and Mary knew she had already gone overboard with the rant she was on, but her brain wasn't in control right now. Her heart, hurting so desperately to have the little girl back that she'd thought she'd raised, had completely taken over. Norah's lack of success as well as her own failures were fueling the fight that was brewing more and more by the second.

"I act the way I do because my life is a shithole…!"

"Norah!" Mark halted the language the minute it was out in the open.

"It's the _truth!"_ her throat had to be turning raw, considering how much she yelled. "And, if you think _you_ all are making it any better, you're all nuts!"

"You think so?" Mary proposed, her question rhetorical through and through, and she sauntered toward her teenager with a swagger she used only with illegals. "Well, then let's take _us_ out of the equation for a second, why don't we? Hmm?"

Her mother's uninhibited arrogance clearly had Norah off her guard; she looked edgy about what might be unleashed. Mary could see by the way her eyes skittered left to right and she had the unmistakable air of someone who wanted to flee the premises at any second. Mary intended to trap her like a mouse in the corner.

"Marshall and your dad and I learned some pretty interesting things this evening."

Now the look of fear only grew. But, Norah wasn't a US Marshal's child for nothing. She might appear like she was shaking in her boots, but her words would uphold her dignity to the very end.

"All my teachers hate me," she spat, sounding painfully thirteen. "You would believe _them_ instead of me? That really makes me feel like I have parents that trust me."

"You're going to go there?" Mary was inches from her face now, so they were almost nose to nose; she distinctly saw Norah gulp. "You want me to recount what they said for _everyone_ to hear?"

The mother took a long, measured look around the space. Everyone was not quite everyone, as Joanna had kissed Mark's cheek, apologized for the mayhem, waved to Alice, and scurried out the door as fast as she could. The only one who would hear of Norah's transgressions that didn't already know about them was Alice, who was listening rapturously from her place in front of the pantry.

A saner Mary wouldn't have discussed something like this in front of her, as it would give her more opportunities to gloat and tease, but she bypassed those feelings. She was enjoying digging in too much to stop now. Norah had been wreaking havoc for weeks, and Mary had let her have free reign. She'd waited too long, and now they were ensnared in her lethal vehemence. Not ideal, but it was too late now.

"They said you do whatever the hell you please, like the rules are designed for everyone but you," the inspector revealed spitefully. "That you turn into this smart ass when you don't like what you hear, and you brood in the corner instead of opening your mouth and showing what you know." And then, just to make her point perfectly, "You know who doesn't have any regard for the system, Norah? Criminals."

The gross exaggeration she was working on was already way out of control, and she registered the hurt that flickered in Norah's stony features. Marshall obviously wanted to slow things down before they ratcheted up any further, no matter how his wife might disagree with him.

"Mary, this isn't necessary," the blonde wanted to admire his calm, but wouldn't allow herself to soften. "Don't get ahead of yourself. What we were told was not exactly favorable, but that doesn't mean…"

"So, you believe it too?" Norah challenged while she had the chance, leaving her mother in the rearview to focus solely on the one person she thought might be on her side. "You believe what they think?" Throwing a disgusted look at Mary, "What _she_ thinks?"

The rudeness was maddening, and the tips of Mary's fingers began to tingle, but it was Mark that touched her shoulder to hold her back. This was because Marshall was too occupied with the test his step-daughter had presented him with. Gazing into her hardened soul, her forested eyes burning with flame, chin jutting out, he could think only of what Stan had said to him that very afternoon, and he knew the time had come.

He wanted so very much to placate Norah, to insist they could work everything out, that he was sure there were two sides to the story. But, he wasn't sure of that at all. And, even if he thought there was a discrepancy somewhere, now was no occasion to go back and forth. He had to support Mary, and supporting Mary would mean putting his reputation as world's coolest dad on the line.

With a sigh, he forced himself to stare back at her, "I'm sorry Norah, but I do." And, before she could aim straight at his heart with her daggers, "It's been really tricky reining you in lately, and if your teachers are noticing it too, then we definitely have a problem."

"A _big_ problem," Mary's immediate response showed her husband that he'd done the right thing, however hard; they were allies. "I was _mortified_ – we were all mortified – hearing the crap you pull at school. What in the world has happened to your common sense?"

"It was disappointing, Norah," Mark murmured, building strength from the fellows around him. "You can do so much better."

"And, _you_ can't?"

The counter-attack disrupted the power struggle, leaving Mark and the others to mentally stagger. To Mary, it was obvious that her daughter was trying to sidetrack them off the negative report from the educators. Unfortunately, Mark made the mistake of taking the bait.

"Why don't you give me a hint here, Norah?" he cracked with sarcasm to rival Mary's. "What am I supposed to be better at?"

She didn't mince words, "Finding a wife."

It was a good thing the mother didn't have a comment to this, because Mark had enough for all of them.

"Do you have any idea how many people in this world have a step-mother, Norah?" now he was advancing, not allowing her to shrink away. "This poor, pitiful me routine ends _today_ ," there was no way to enforce it, but he probably felt dominant saying it. "This wedding and this baby are not some great conspiracy to ruin your life, but you're doing a pretty good job spoiling it for the rest of us!"

"You mean you and Jill?" she guffawed heartlessly.

"Yes, me and Jill!" he batted back. "We have feelings, we have a life, and the steps that we have made recently are no excuse for you running around like a bully, both here and at school!"

"Fine, I won't blame it on you, even though it's totally your fault!"

"Well, what isn't my fault?!"

"I don't know…" Norah mimed thinking for a moment, finger on her chin. "I guess not _everything_. You don't put your life on hold just to salivate all over Alice like she's the Gerber baby the way that mom and Marshall do…"

This gave Mary permission to leap back in; "You cut it out!" pointing a sharp finger in her face. "The way you talk about Alice is despicable!" that was a Marshall word, and even he probably wouldn't have used it in this instance. "She's your sister, she's not the devil!"

"Ha-ha-ha!" Alice herself suddenly cackled from the kitchen, where she was digging into a granola bar, proving she was listening to the dispute with open ears.

"You see!" Norah moaned dreadfully.

"I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about you!"

"Yeah!" Alice echoed.

"Be quiet, sugar," Marshall intoned.

"All she needs is horns and a pitchfork!" Norah worked off Mary's previous description. "My life started sucking the minute she showed up!"

"At least she acts like she loves you once in awhile – you might try to do the same!"

"Like I'm supposed to love _Jill?"_

"Yeah, but you're _supposed_ to love me!" Alice did not heed Marshall's advice and skipped back into the living room, glorifying her mother's unrestrained, blind defense driven by a poor night and an innocent first grade essay. "You _have_ to love me. I'm your _sister_."

" _Half_ -sister."

There was a sudden hush, all the helter-skelter back and forth they'd been flinging around coming to a silent, unexpected stop. Mary was panting like she had run a race, and Norah looked as boorish as ever, Marshall and Mark growing weary between them. At first, the woman could not understand why two people who were so skilled at arguing would suddenly halt their dialogue just when it was heating up; usually they were snapping at each other for minutes at a time before someone pulled them apart.

But, there was a vicious, sick kind of pride in Norah's frigid face, but Alice looked puzzled, even unruffled. It wasn't immediately clear why, not until she spoke with a confident little laugh to go along.

"What?" the six-year-old giggled. "There's no such thing as a half-sister."

"Yes there is," Norah sneered. "That's what we are. _Half_ -sisters."

The way she was putting so much emphasis on the single word was chilling to Mary, who found herself yearning to leap in, because she could see Alice's dawning comprehension that whatever Norah said, it was nothing good. But, her feet seemed rooted to the spot and her mouth glued shut. Her sudden muteness just gave way for the whole horrible conversation to continue.

"You're making that up," Alice accused, but she didn't sound sure.

"Sure, I am," the older oozed disdain. "If you knew anything, you'd know what a half-sister is. It means we aren't real sisters."

Mary wanted to scream at her to shut up, no matter how much it hurt her, but there was something wrong with her voice. It was obstructed by the mystified, painful glance seeping slowly into Alice's milky white face. Alice was ordinarily so full of life, loaded with buoyancy and self-assurance; seeing her like this was excruciating.

"We are so real sisters."

There was nothing belligerent in her tone. It was beseeching, throbbing to believe that Norah was pulling her leg, just trying to upset her. If it was the latter, it was working.

"Well, if you want to think so, then fine," the thirteen-year-old brushed off coolly. "But, it doesn't change the way things really are. You're my _half_ -sister and dad and Jill's spawn will be my half _whatever_. And, you know what?"

Alice didn't answer. Her lip was quivering; her eyes were pooling with wetness. It was plain that she could not comprehend someone being so unaccountably mean.

"When I grow up, I can do what most people do with their _half_ siblings – like mom does with Lauren and Scott."

And, before Mary could say a word to defend herself, Norah had stuck the knife in all the way.

"I can pretend they don't even exist."

There wasn't a time in Mary's life where she could remember ever being so angry. She felt like she could punch a hole in the wall, rip a door from its hinges, and kick all the furniture to the wall in one fell swoop. Perhaps the emotions were so strong because Norah's behavior was so similar to what her own had been for so many years, and seeing herself in such a way was demoralizing.

Alice squeaked at first, and then she sniffled; her shoulders began to tremble, and then she started to cry. Mary's rage was overpowered only for a second by the need to scoop her baby up and hold her close, to make the hurt go away. But, she wasn't fast enough. Streaming tears, blubbering something about 'real sisters,' the first grader bolted the scene, flying into the bathroom, where the locks clicked almost at once.

Norah saved face by jeering and rolling her eyes, but Mary knew it was an act. So little damaged Alice's feelings; seeing her start sobbing was getting to Norah, whether she showed it or not.

"She's such a fake."

Mary was all ready to jump down her throat, but she wasn't quick enough. As if her world couldn't be rocked any further.

"Go to your room."

At first, she didn't know who had said it. Norah didn't seem to either, as those four little words were so different from any such a lovely man had ever spoken. He was done being lovely. He was done being understanding. He was done with all of it.

"What?" Norah garbled.

"Go to your room," Marshall repeated, his eyes an eerie grey, his voice sharp. "Now."

Playing with fire, the girl made an indistinct noise in her throat, as if she couldn't believe her step-father was serious. She turned, wild-eyed, from one parent to the other, looking for someone to back her up. When none of them did, Alice's sobs ascending from where she resided behind the closed bathroom door, Marshall lost his cool. It was like a hellish demon that Mary had not known existed cracked out of his skin; a scary Marshall wasn't one she could identify with.

"NOW!"

Unable to deny he meant business this time, Norah turned and fled, running for the safety of her bedroom. She was not as skilled as her sister at turning on the waterworks, but Mary knew Alice's theatrics were nothing close to phony. Norah had, without question, hurt her feelings brutally, and so carelessly to boot. Marshall looked as though smoke might come out his ears at any moment, and when he turned to Mary, she hardly recognized him. Nobody, not even Norah, got away with maligning his baby girl.

"I want her to stay in there until she's ready to apologize," hearing him give orders was disarming, but it must've been the bad ass chief in him, learned at Stan's elbow for so many years. "Apologize _and_ mean it."

Mary had no plans to argue, but she was two steps ahead of him. Allowing Norah to sequester herself and brood about how horribly unfair her life was-was not in the cards. She knew she could count on Marshall to comfort Alice; he would be who she ran to, anyway. That left her, the hallmark bad cop, to finagle with the unruly one.

"You get Alice," she told him. "Let me deal with Norah."

"Fine."

The single word was all the permission she needed. Leaving Mark standing like a stupid sitting duck, the inspector swept right past him, hardly giving Norah's door time to slam shut. With the sound of Alice's aching moans ringing in her ears, she burst through the hatch without bothering to knock, shoving it roughly back into its hinges so hard that the knick-knacks on Alice's dresser rattled.

The itch she was experiencing for a good brawl with her daughter was almost suffocating. Mary knew she should stop and think, that she might say something she would later regret, but future lamenting did not seem remotely important at the moment. She was going to get Norah to put up or shut up, or die trying.

Flinging the separating curtain back, she found her daughter standing in front of her desk, and she immediately whipped around at the sound. Mary didn't give her a second for rebuttal; she was a rocket ready to blast off.

"Where the hell did you learn to be so cruel?"

It was darkly ironic that Mary, of all people, was schooling anyone on the value of respecting another's feelings. She'd come a long way, but Norah wasn't going to give her even a smidgen of credit.

"Where do you think?" she snapped maliciously. And, before her mother could formulate a guess, "From you."

"Is that what this is about?" Mary battled back. "Me? Because, if you're looking for a punching bag, then go ahead!" spreading her arms wide. "You've already abused your teachers, the kids at school…"

"Shut up about the kids at school!" she hollered. "You don't know a thing about them!"

The woman paid her no mind, "Not to mention your dad and Marshall and your sister…"

"Quit calling her my sister!"

"She _is_ your sister!" that she would try this trick again made Mary want to swing her leg at the desk and kick it. "And you are not coming out of here until you tell her that you're sorry! What you said to her was disgusting! She loves you and you treat her like she's nothing!"

"And she doesn't treat _me_ like I'm nothing, when everyone treats _her_ like she's the heir to the throne?!"

"She is six years old!" Mary barked, unable to fathom she was pulling the card that Jinx had pulled for so many years, but it was karma at its finest. "I am not going to pretend that she can't be a pest, but you're older, Norah; you're supposed to know better, for Christ sakes. She is supposed to be able to look up to you…"

"Like hell she does…"

"Well, you're a _hell_ of a role model," targeting the constant swearing. "Is this really what you want to teach her? That it's okay to tell everyone to go screw themselves if you're in a crappy mood?"

"Isn't that what _you_ do? Isn't that what you've _always_ done?"

Mary was well aware that her daughter was deflecting, that she was using her mother's glaring faults to take the focus off her own inadequacies. But, as this was the second time in less than a minute that she had hit below the belt, Mary decided on the spot that she might as well pay for it. As Mark had said, they'd all had more than enough of the teenager feeling sorry for herself; others had it far worse, and the blonde had every intention of reminding her that someone who'd suffered more greatly was living right under their roof.

"You want to try tough, kid?" she defied her accusations like the tormenter on the playground. "You want to do things the hard way? Try going back to when _I_ was thirteen – you want to give that a whirl?"

She was on a roll now, and couldn't stop even if she'd wanted to. Norah was as defiant as ever, but she did not interrupt, and Mary's chest felt like it was about to burst from the need to show her child what a tortured livelihood was really like.

"I can be unemployed and passed out half the day and you can clean up all the bottles of beer before your friends come over! You can stand on the front porch after me and Alice have gone to sleep and wonder if the person in charge is ever showing up!" tears pricked at the back of her throat, but she refused to let them fall. "And then when he doesn't, you can take Alice by the hand and make sure she gets to school and fix her dinner and has clean clothes because I'm sure as hell not gonna do it and there's no Marshall or dad around to do it for us…"

"You ever wonder _why_ your dumbass dad got out of town?" Norah's voice was loud, at ample volume, begging the inspector to quit the melodrama. "Do you ever think about that?"

"Because he was a deadbeat who didn't give a damn about me or Jinx or Brandi, something you don't have the first clue about!" there would've been a time when Mary couldn't have admitted that, but James was smoke on the water now; there, and then gone. "People are falling all over themselves trying to help you and all you do is spit in our faces!"

"I don't need _or_ want your help!"

It this wasn't familiar, Mary didn't know what was, and it was almost enough to have her breaking down. She knew all too well about not accepting assistance when you craved it most of all. But, she was too irate to go there.

"Then you need to quit acting like this put-upon toddler that throws a fit every time she doesn't get what she wants." And, just to conclude her point, "And you can toss this attitude about Alice in the garbage. You think just because she's technically a 'half' sister, that you only have to love her half the time?"

"Who says I even care half?"

The remark was heart-stopping, strangling; Mary might've been having a stroke or a seizure right there in the bedroom and no one but her would know it. Routing through her veins, pounding through her blood, was the unquenchable need to scream at Norah like she had never been screamed at before – to take away every privilege and desire she'd ever had or ever might have, from her precious novels on down to Knox. Anything to make her feel as badly as Mary felt.

But, the real throb was the shame that stung her like a horde of wasps, almost more dominant than Norah's nonchalant nastiness. It was creepy, but it also couldn't be denied. Years and years ago, before Marshall had been her husband, before she'd any children, she had uttered the exact same phrase to Brandi in reference to Scott – _her_ half sibling. Her half sibling that was now dead.

That something like that had once been so casual to her made her feel as though she was being speared with a knife. Evidently, no matter how much she claimed to have changed, her true nature still had deep roots that could not be plucked from the earth. Her heartlessness lived in Norah. As far as setting an example, she was abysmal.

But, rather than own up to her transgressions, she only walked away, both literally and figuratively. She couldn't fool with this any longer. She was done.

"Pack your bag and get Knox," she demanded in a flat voice. "You're going to your dad's."

"Good, because I'm not staying here…"

"Well, for once we agree, Bug."

The affectionate nickname seemed so bare now. So false. So superficial. From a time they had all lost.

"Because I can't even look at you anymore tonight."

XXX

 **A/N: I knew I wanted Norah and Alice to have a real blow out, more than just their usual squabbles, but try as I might to come up with something that would be the catalyst for it, nothing ever clicked. I wanted Norah to cross a line, but not be so mean as to be cruel (despite what Mary calls it). But, her comment about them not being real sisters didn't fit the bill I was looking for, though I obviously used it anyway. You really aren't supposed to hate Norah, though I'm sure it seems that way from the writing. Mary is just Mary and fed up and frustrated and not being sympathetic. And all that.**

 **I'll stop rambling now…**


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N: I'm glad nobody thought my writing was trying to sway you into disliking Norah in the last chapter. I have had a couple people remark on how the girls are so difficult in this story, and I will honestly say that I made them this way because I had never written a story where the kids I created were anything but sweet and polite and everything you want kids to be. I gave them flaws, yes, but nothing like this, and I wanted to try something different. I enjoy the feedback I am getting on the subject.**

XXX

By the time Norah was actually out of the house, taking her huff and bad mood with her as well as Mark, Mary thought she would be relieved. She could focus solely on Alice, for she had the unexplainable urge to apologize to her younger daughter for all the times she had even remotely played favorites between her and Norah.

As a mother, she tried not to, but her view was skewed at the moment; she was blinded by upset. All she could consider was Alice's heartwarming essay about her big sister and Norah's constant smear campaign against her. It was unfair of her, unfair of everyone, to act as though Alice had never asked for an argument, that she could be a nuisance for no reason, but that wasn't on Mary's mind. If she was going to have one kid hate her, she was going to do everything she could to make sure the other one didn't too.

But, far from relieved, all she felt once Norah was gone was exhaustion. Her bones and limbs were limp, as though she'd been holding them rigid while they'd argued. Her brain was fried and trying to produce any kind of coherent thought was next to impossible. It didn't help that Alice was proving a lot harder to calm down than she would've anticipated. Marshall got her out of the bathroom only when she was assured that Norah had departed. Even then, she barely spoke and would not touch her dinner; it went down the garbage disposal and her father, taking pity on his little girl, allowed her to lounge in front of the television. Without Norah around to point out the injustice, there was no need to tiptoe around.

Mary and Marshall were mostly quiet themselves, neither one sure what to say to the other. As Marshall prepared a lunch for Alice to take to school the next day, Mary sifting through her backpack, he broke the silence between them with what his wife should've considered a predictable statement.

"I'm sorry."

She looked up at once from where her head was buried in one of Alice's folders, which hadn't been emptied in awhile. She'd grown accustomed to only the television humming in the living room, that his voice had seemed to come out of nowhere.

"What?" she was sure she hadn't heard him properly.

"I just wanted to tell you I was sorry."

Mary frowned, "Sorry for what?"

"Well, for the way I spoke to Norah earlier."

He looked so sheepish, so ashamed, that Mary might've made fun of him if she hadn't known his remorse was genuine. Absurd as it was, she was well aware he was being honest, that he thought he had every reason to feel regretful. But, even if Mary wasn't going to tease him, she was going to let him know that his repentance was wasted energy.

"You can't be serious," she stated, allowing the backpack to rest on a nearby stool to give him her full attention. "Marshall, you were being a parent. She was a hundred miles out of line; she deserved everything you did. And more."

"I don't know…" he shook his head agitatedly, spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread before reaching for a second knife and dipping it into the jelly jar. "I should've just stayed out of it. You and Mark were both there; you could've taken care of things…"

"Well, sure we _could've_ , and I definitely did…" referencing the showdown in the bedroom. "But, you know we both trust you to do what's best with Norah. You can't go around feeling guilty every time you have to point your finger and tell her to cut it out."

"I don't have a whole lot of experience with that."

"You'd never know it by looking at you," she meant this as a compliment. "Whenever Alice is fooling around, you let her have it. Norah's no different."

"So, you're not upset with me?"

Mary cocked her head, "No…" as she was baffled to think he could doubt his expertise as a dad. "I've told you before, you're like her father. If you're gonna be that, you can't be her friend all the time." Wanting to soften the blow a little, she rectified her comment, "She'll forgive you, Marshall. She'll want to be your pal again someday." And then, "Which is more than I can say for me."

All of a sudden, this struck the man as amusing, although not really in a humorous way. Though he didn't believe what Mary said about dads having to be the enemy sometimes, he was all ready to tell her that, as the mom, she was going to have to be the villain more often than not. It was a job nobody wanted, but a job they all had to accept.

"Did she hit you pretty hard back there?" he wondered, gesturing toward the girls' room and squishing both slices of bread together.

"I suppose," she shrugged. "That, or she showed me what an appalling example I've been setting for her all these years." Before he could question her about this, she continued, "Honestly, Marshall…" a derisive scoff. "How did you deal with me back when we were partners? I was so merciless, so unfeeling, and when I see that same thing in Norah, when I see how vindictive she can be, it's like looking at myself in a mirror…"

"Come on, now…" he sighed, stuffing the sandwich into a baggie, which he then tossed into Alice's lunchbox. "You came with a lot of baggage; however snarky you might've been, I understood how you got that way…"

"Well, you shouldn't have," Mary didn't mean to snap, but she was frustrated. "You should've kicked me to the curb and told me what a harpy I really was. Then maybe I wouldn't have a kid that takes pot shots at everyone within a two foot radius and doesn't even feel badly about it."

"I'm not going to pretend I know what to do about this," the chief confessed, choosing not to target anything Mary had said. "But, sometime soon, I think we need to have an honest, nuts and bolts discussion with Norah – the beautiful and the ugly. We avoid even when we don't mean to, and if we're calm and frank, but also direct, maybe we can get to the crux of whatever is going on with her…"

"And, if that doesn't work?" she murmured miserably.

"Then I say we stop waffling," Mary was surprised by his ready-made response, but his mind must've been working overtime to determine the next step. "We tell her that if she doesn't start straightening up, there are consequences."

"What are the consequences?" she asked.

Marshall gave a small smile, "We'll have to make a list." And then, harking back to a much earlier time, "You like lists."

"I do…" she whispered dreamily; glad to have something more pleasant from her past to think about, rather than what Norah had forced her to remember earlier. "I definitely do."

It looked as though Marshall was about to say something else; he even moved around the island, hands outstretched like they were about to rove around her waist. But, the sound of socked feet reached their ears and both turned mid-step to find Alice shuffling into their midst. She'd been so quiet, neither had heard her approach, and she didn't look any more vigorous than she had a few hours previously.

The skin around her eyes was still pink, slightly puffy around the corners, and her already pale skin seemed unusually white, stark against the crystal blue of her eyes. The ponytail that her hair had been in had sunk halfway down her head and migrated to one side, no doubt because she'd been lying on the sofa. She walked slumped part-way over, which made her resemble a hunchback.

"Daddy, I don't feel good…" she moaned, and it could've been because Mary was prickling to coddle her, but the account didn't sound as outwardly dramatic as usual. "Can you make my tummy better?"

Slumping pathetically against one of Marshall's long legs, she closed eyes and rubbed her face into the denim of his jeans. Unsure if she was really ill or merely feely poorly due to the outburst with Norah, Marshall was still sympathetic and looped his arm around her, rumpling her hair as he did so.

"Your belly still hurts?" he tried to confirm. "Are you sure you aren't hungry, sugar?"

Alice shook her head slowly, but didn't offer anything else. For the second time that evening, Marshall pushed his hand up underneath her bangs, but his test was more calculated this time, as if he were checking for something he might have missed earlier. Alice let him do as he pleased, burrowing further into his leg, tasting and hunting his touch like a dog with a bone.

"You don't feel warm…" he reported hesitantly. "But, you know that dads are not the experts when it comes to sick children – why, in comparison to some, I am a mere novice."

Alice didn't answer, but Mary knew where he was going. She wanted to tell him the ego boost was unnecessary, but she found herself grinning against her will instead, sad though her smile remained.

"I wouldn't be averse to getting the verdict from mom," he beckoned Mary with his free hand while his daughter's eyes were still shut. "Let's see what she has to say."

Sometimes, Mary thought it was his life mission to make sure she was happy one hundred percent of the time, and he would do whatever he could to achieve that. Making her feel needed, that her child simply couldn't get by without her even for something as simple as this, was his way of managing that right now. And so, to appease him and maybe herself as well, she stepped over and repeated his movements, fingers tickling across Alice's brow for any hint of a fever.

Like Marshall had indicated, her flesh wasn't hot, but it felt slightly clammy to her mother. This didn't entirely add up, because it wasn't warm in the house; the day had been a cool one, and the air conditioning wasn't running; by the same token, neither was the heat.

"You seem okay to me, Little Bit…" she was forced to admit. "But, you could be coming down with something – a bug or a cold," she formulated. "Is anyone in your class sick?"

Alice just shrugged and sighed sleepily, her lip stuck out in a very impressive pout. Mary decided she would take one last stab at getting her to digest some food; if Joanna's asparagus had been especially unappealing, maybe everything sounded unappetizing until they hit exactly the right meal.

"You wouldn't want any ice cream, would you?" it was shameless to spoil her, but Mary longed to see her smile, having a shrewd idea that her down-in-the-dumps attitude wasn't solely because of an upset stomach. "There's vanilla in the freezer, and we have chocolate syrup."

Alice seemed to consider, although not very thoroughly. It was easy to see that she was having a hard time saying no, but even in spite of being offered dessert without dinner, she couldn't commit. This concerned Mary, knowing if she was turning down sweets that she probably didn't feel great.

"Maybe a little…" she eventually murmured. "Can I take it to my room?"

"How come?" Mary ventured.

"I'm tired."

"You want to go to bed already?" Marshall queried with a definite degree of surprise. "You can finish watching your show if you want."

It was some insipid cartoon that Mary wouldn't last two minutes in front of, the talking heads all in garish shades of neon with voices that sounded as though all the actors had sucked on helium. There was no way that would go anywhere toward cheering Alice up, even if she was the target audience, and she wagged her head another time.

"Can you read me a story?"

She didn't specify who she was talking to, but it was Marshall who answered.

"I would be delighted," he proclaimed, and without further ado, he hoisted her off the floor and into his arms, where she immediately nuzzled into his neck with a contented sigh. "What'll it be this evening?"

"You can pick."

"Well, that is an honor if ever I heard one." Turning to Mary, "Care to join us?"

He knew that she would accept, but only with a condition, "Let me get that ice cream, and then I'll be there."

"Sounds like a deal."

Without extending the conversation, he toted Alice off to the bedroom; Mary hoped to catch her eye from where she was sprawled over Marshall's back, but her eyes were closed. An unexpected hunger struck the woman right then, a pitch not unlike the one she had felt watching the home video of Jinx. Alice might be under the weather and victimized to add insult to injury, but she always had somewhere to turn when life threw her a curveball. The safe haven she could forever count on resided deep in her father; there was nothing he wouldn't do for her, no trade he wouldn't make. However exasperating she could be, Marshall never gave up on her.

And Mary, at just about Alice's age, had been beginning to realize just the opposite about her own father. And, while she was not a fan of the thespian acts, she couldn't help wondering if that was how Norah was feeling. That Mark, much as he loved her, could not be relied upon for security. It was untrue, as Mark had always put his daughter first in life, but sometimes nothing could change those teenage ideas. It had to be a lonely way to live.

But, Mary had not wanted to feel sorry for her daughter, and so she did her best to push those thoughts of Norah from her mind in favor of retrieving the ice cream as promised. Spooning three scoops into a bowl and then drizzling syrup into the snowy mounds, she carried it down the hall, assuming she would have to try to keep it cold while Marshall got Alice into her pajamas and ready to go to sleep.

But, this wasn't the case. When she wasn't arguing a pleading five more minutes, it seemed Alice was actually fairly quick at getting herself prepared to slumber. She was already tucked in her covers when Mary arrived, Marshall patting the comforter and gesturing his wife inside the minute he saw her appear in the doorway.

"Ah, special delivery…" he declared, noticing the dessert as well. "If this isn't service, I don't know what is."

Alice gave a small smile as her mother approached, soft and weak on the corners, but it was there nonetheless, and that was what Mary liked to see. Taking a seat beside her husband on the edge of the mattress, she handed the bowl over and Alice shifted up part way to sneak a taste.

"Whatever you don't finish, I can do the honors," Mary teased lightly, knowing she made it public knowledge that she could never keep her hands to herself when there was food around. "Seriously, I'll lick this thing clean just like Knox would."

At the mention of the dog, Alice took pause in her first bite, "Did Norah take him to Mark's?"

Regardless of their arrangement where that was concerned, the canine's first trip to Mark's had been botched by the way Norah had left the house. In her frenzy, she had forgotten him, as he'd been out in the yard when the brawl had occurred. Maybe next time, Mary thought with a sigh, knowing that her daughter would've liked the company, deserving or not.

"Nope. He's out on the deck," she filled her in. "Marshall or I will probably let him in once we get you tucked in."

"It's not usually both of you," Alice observed between a few tentative slurps of ice cream. "That put me to bed, I mean."

"No, it's usually just dad," Mary agreed with a stitch of shame. "But, switching things up never hurt anyone. Did you decide on a story?"

The first grader shook her head and went quiet for a moment, seemingly lost in her thoughts as well as her frosty treat. Her eyes never strayed to the bookshelf by the door, holding all the childhood classics as well as some kitschy ones that Mary didn't touch if she could avoid it. She thought Marshall might propose a few ideas to get the ball rolling, or at least to lift Alice's spirits, especially if he could pinpoint a funny tale that would cause her to forget her troubles. But, he seemed content to let her ponder, rather than push her when she wasn't ready.

After gobbling about half the bowl of ice cream, Alice suddenly looked up, but it wasn't her parents to whom she turned. Blue orbs flickering toward the empty half of the room, she took in Norah's unmade bed and her backpack resting on her desk chair, part way unzipped. It wasn't out of the ordinary not to have her home, but Mary knew she was thinking about how they had ended things, and it had not been with an apology.

"Did Norah want to go to Mark and Jill's tonight?" she asked out of the blue.

If he was taken aback, Marshall didn't show it, "Want to or not, that's where she is," and there was nothing like frank honesty to shut down an uncomfortable discussion. "It's part of the contract when your parents aren't married."

Or, it was supposed to be, anyway, and Alice knew that well enough from growing up with a child of divorce. This didn't seem to completely answer her question, however, because she prodded further.

"Why doesn't she like Jill?" As if unable to comprehend the ridiculousness of it all, "She's really nice. I don't get it."

Marshall sighed, leaning his weight onto one hand, not even sharing a consulting glance with Mary. It seemed he could take care of this one on his own, no matter how he might fumble.

"It's complicated, sugar. And, I know that isn't a very satisfying answer," only Marshall would use such a broad word with such a little kid. "But, it's the best way I can explain it. I think it has to do with Norah having to share Mark with someone when she's never had to share him before. Now, she has to split up her time with him, not just with Jill, but with the new baby when he or she arrives."

"But, that doesn't mean Mark won't love her anymore."

"You're right," Marshall concurred. "But, it doesn't make it any less difficult for Norah." And then, probably not wanting to look like he was neglecting what had gone on earlier, "I'm truly sorry for what she said to you before she left tonight. Being upset with Mark is no excuse for it."

"Same goes for me, Little Bit," Mary chimed in. "And, just so you know, you _both_ came from _me_ , and you're as real as any other sisters walking this planet."

Alice gave no recognition of whether she accepted an apology coming from her mother and father when it should've come from Norah herself. But, the fact that she wasn't completely milking them doting on her proved to Mary, at least, that she might honestly be getting a virus. For a girl who blossomed endlessly under any kind of fawning, this was most unusual. Was she sick, or had Norah truly damaged her ego that badly?

Working off the inspector's previous declaration, "Mark's baby will be Norah's brother or sister, right?"

It occurred to Mary that Alice was finally old enough to understand such a concept, even if she didn't understand all the logistics that went along with it.

"That's right," she confirmed.

"Do you think Norah will like the baby when it's born, or will she hate it like she hates me?"

This was like a dagger in Mary's chest, and she did her best not to let the shock show on her face. As if she didn't have enough guilt to go around, she couldn't help reflecting over her past life once again. Had she ever made Brandi feel this badly, like she could do nothing right? Their relationship had been different, and had existed under far less rosy circumstances, but she'd despised Brandi growing up, even if she had protected her to the bitter end. It suddenly seemed of little comfort that they had come out the other side relatively unscathed.

"Norah doesn't hate you," Marshall insisted before his wife could put her two cents in. "She gets mad sometimes; she says things she doesn't mean. Do you ever feel like you do that?"

"Sometimes, I guess."

"Yeah, you know you do," Mary recapped, but not in an accusatory way. "Everybody does. I could be wrong…"

"Who, you?" Marshall joshed with a smirk.

She waved him away, "But, I think Norah will get used to the idea of the baby before it ever shows up. And then when Jill has him – or her – she'll have to adjust all over again. It's a vicious cycle."

Alice didn't behave as though she understood what the last figure of speech meant, but she didn't act like she cared either. She regarded the remains of her ice cream for a second, which was melting fast, but it didn't appear she could get the subject of Norah off her mind. The way her eyes kept darting over to the older girl's half of the room convinced her mother she was still dwelling over what had gone down. If Mary had never read the journal entry detailing Alice's hero worship of her big sister, she would've never been able to understand what had her so upset.

"Was Norah excited when I was born?"

There was such hopefulness in her face that Mary longed to lie to her. She almost gave away her hand by glancing at Marshall, and being able to read his brain as she could, she recognized he was in favor of a fib as well. Sometimes, innocent tale-telling didn't get anyone in trouble, especially if they didn't exaggerate.

"In a way, kind of…" the woman fabricated leisurely. "She thought you were gonna be a boy."

"Really?"

"Yes," Marshall affirmed. "It was Robyn who thought you were a girl."

"What did Norah do when she found out I wasn't a boy?"

Mary knew it would not be very tactful or, indeed, very soothing, for Alice to learn that the news of her gender had coincided with Norah's running away, even if that wasn't the reason for it. And so, she strained her memory, trying to block out the portions that included her crying over Marshall's departure, borne out of his partner's inability to set a wedding date. She saw Norah sitting atop the counter, or maybe it was a barstool, swinging her feet and digesting the news. Something sparked, including Mark's boyish face when he, too, discovered the being within Mary's belly was female.

"Well, I asked her if she was disappointed, and she said no, because she had Max," she explained. "And, she felt you kicking in my tummy, which she thought was weird…"

"Can I feel Jill's baby kick?"

"Probably not yet," the blonde said. "But, soon." And, knowing they were veering off topic, "Anyway, Norah kind of put two and two together and figured out that you two would be sisters six years apart, just like Brandi and I were – are."

"She liked that?"

"I think so," she hunched her shoulders indifferently. "I know Norah doesn't always act like it, but she's pretty good at keeping people safe – since she likes to feel in charge and all," a wink. "She knew I kind of had to do that for Brandi growing up, so I like to think she was looking forward to doing that with you."

For the first time, Alice didn't look curious or drawn into these unplanned stories, but skeptical. With her eyebrows inching together in the middle, her already pronounced pout just intensifying, she blinked at her parents like they had both lost their minds. Funnily enough, it caused her to resemble Marshall even more strongly than she already did, which didn't entirely match. It wasn't often he made such a face.

"Norah doesn't keep me safe," she said it as though there could be no doubt. "When's she ever done that?"

Clearly, she was expecting a let down here, and the way she didn't even wait for a reply proved it. Apparently finished with her treat, she leaned over and placed the bowl on her bedside table. Sliding down beneath her blankets, her face got lost inside her pillow when she turned on her side, shutting her eyes once more against the lamp shining in soft yellow nearby.

The one thing her skepticism allowed was for Mary and Marshall to trade looks, something they had been doing an awful lot of lately. Mary did not love being so clandestine, like they were constantly keeping things from their children, but sometimes it was a necessary evil. There was concern etched in his face; it wasn't hard to imagine that his heart was breaking knowing Alice thought her big sister had little to no regard for her – didn't now, never had.

But, if anyone could sunny a situation up, it was Marshall. With a slow nod of his head, he indicated that he would do the honors in making their daughter see there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Reaching out and flattening her brunette curls against her pillow, he spoke in a softer, gentler voice than he had been doing previously. No doubt he was hoping sleep was not far away.

"Sugar, do you remember after Jinx died, and we had a funeral for her? It was in a big church and lots of people came; you wore a black dress and mommy clipped your hair back on the sides…"

Even pulling forth as many details as his mind could muster, it didn't produce the desired result. It had only been three years ago, but when you'd only been alive for seven years – not even – certain instances got lost in the woodwork. It saddened Mary that this was one of them.

"I was sick on Jinx's funeral," Alice muttered into her pillow.

"You were sick for the visitation," Marshall corrected. "You made it to the funeral. You sat with Robyn and Max and Mark and Norah. You actually sat on Norah's lap."

From her near-slumber, the little girl's eyes opened the merest fraction. What little Mary could see of their cloudless blue was dubious, but also cautiously buoyant.

"Why?" she whispered almost mutely.

"Well…" Marshall swallowed, a bulge going down his throat. "When the service was ending, you got upset because Jinx was taken away – in the casket," here, he couldn't resist flickering his gaze at Mary, likely remembering her sensitivity to all-things-Jinx since the video the night before. "You were crying, and Norah pulled you onto her lap so you wouldn't have to see."

The woman wanted to stop herself from asking what was bursting to flood out her mouth, mostly because it was unnecessary; she already knew the answer. But, the appetite to give Alice something to cling to, some shred of proof Norah had not always been so callous toward her, was overwhelming.

"Do you remember that?"

But, just as she'd feared, the child wagged her head side-to-side.

"No," a murmur; there was as much disappointment in her face as there probably was in Mary's. "How come I can't?"

"You were little," Marshall patted her belly beneath the covers, deciding not to mention that she was hardly very old these days. "Only four. Sometimes, memories fade as you grow up."

Not just sometimes, his wife thought, but there was no point putting a downer on a conversation that was already pretty dreary to begin with.

"Where did they take Jinx after she died?"

"To the cemetery," the father presented swiftly. "She was buried in the ground with a headstone showing that-that's where she's resting."

It was so matter-of-fact to someone like him, Mary thought; it was so easy for him to gloss it over, to show it as the simple truth it was and nothing more. It was unclear to her if he really felt so cavalier about Jinx's death, which seemed unlikely, or if he was just putting it out there as such to avoid the stickier aspects.

But, if the latter had been his goal, he was going to have to work a lot harder at sounding dispassionate. Apparently, ill or not, nothing could turn off Alice's busily buzzing brain. From Jill's offspring to the state of Norah's heart and now to her grandmother's passing, the questions just couldn't be shut down.

"What about heaven?"

The tiniest hint of an exhale eked its way into the open, displaying that Marshall was at least a little worn out and that he wanted to put his daughter to bed without so much on all their minds. But, like any good daddy, he didn't blow her off or try to placate her with something trivial. He was patient; he was kind.

"What about it?"

"Do you think Jinx's spirit went to heaven?" And, as if she had forgotten Marshall entirely, she stared intently and purposefully straight at Mary. "Or hell?"

The old familiar need to scold crept like wildfire into Mary's chest; her compulsion was to strike the word in two, because that was their no-holds-barred policy with Alice and swearing – something they probably needed to adopt with Norah.

And yet, something like a cool ocean wave swept through her system, extinguishing that burning flame – a ripple that felt a lot like Marshall's hand on her knee. Of all the times Alice had wanted to know the meaning of the devil's supposed chamber beneath the planet, this was the first time she sounded honestly curious, and not just fishing for a reaction, whether good or bad. Mary could see in her beautiful cobalt orbs that she wasn't just intrigued, but maybe even worried.

Who was to say there wasn't such a place, a place you were destined to land if you didn't toe the line? From a personal standpoint, Mary didn't believe it, raised Catholic or not. Religion had never been something she had preferred to mess with, and it certainly wasn't something they'd passed onto her children. Whatever ideas they had, they'd gained on their own or from someone outside the home. It had never come up.

But, what was Alice supposed to think of no one gave her any insight? To have her go to bed believing anybody could perish on the devil's carpet for eternity was sure to evoke nightmares, and no way was Mary going to have that on her child's head.

And so, forgetting everything she'd ever dismissed about the afterlife and speaking purely from her heart and for her daughter, she got there before Marshall, so anxious was she to restore belief in even the unknown.

"Heaven," she was surprised that it came out in a whisper, instead of a command.

"Heaven," Marshall reiterated, throwing his most admiring look in her direction.

"Does anybody really go to hell?" now that she knew she was safe from punishment, Alice pressed on with the questions she had probably wanted to ask for a long time now.

"I don't know," Mary shifted the comforter underneath her chin and ran a hand along her cheek, causing her eyelids to flutter closed again. "Are you worried about it?"

To this, she received only a nod, but it was a sudden relief to be getting somewhere.

"How come?"

"Because I thought it's where bad people go when they die, and Norah is really mean and terrible sometimes, but I don't want her to go there. I want her to go to heaven like Jinx."

Where this notion had been concocted, the inspector did not even have a guess, and from the shell-shocked look in Marshall's features, he had no more expected it than she had. But, the one thing both of them could do was put their little girl's mind at ease, theologians or not. There definitely was something to be said for little white lies, or at least pretending that, as the parent, you could fix all of life's little uncertainties with only your words and your kisses. Norah might be too old for that now, but Alice, blissfully, was not.

"Two things…" the man garbled, sounding as though there were something lodged in his throat. Pulling the knots out of her hair with his long fingers, "One, I don't ever want you worrying about Norah – or anybody else – dying. That is not a first grade problem."

"Mmm hmm…" Alice hummed, no doubt enjoying his massage.

"And, secondly," there was a note of finality in his voice; like this was all he planned to say on the subject before turning out the lights, for which Mary was grateful. "The world is not divided into good people and bad ones, Big Al. Nothing is black and white. Even the best of us are always a little grey, and that includes Norah. You've gotta take the rainbows along with the storms." Leaning over, he laid a light kiss on her cheek, "You understand what I'm saying?"

There was a pause, during which Mary thought Alice might've actually crashed during Marshall's most eloquent part of the speech. Because of this, she arched her neck and bestowed a kiss of her own, fully prepared to stand and tiptoe quietly away. But, at the touch of her mother's lips on her skin, she came to. There was bewilderment in her visage as well as fatigue, but also that little sketch of a light bulb flashing that Mary didn't miss.

"Sometimes it's scary at night…" her tone was soft, and her statement confusing, until she went on. "Because it's dark. But, you have to have nighttime to get daytime, when it's sunny again." Blinking innocently, "Kind of like that?"

The good with the bad. The highs with the lows. The love with the hate.

"It can't rain forever," Marshall reiterated with a proud smile at his daughter's understanding. "Goodnight, sugar."

"Goodnight, daddy."

XXX

 **A/N: Thank-you to everyone still reading and reviewing. I appreciate it!**


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N: Over-the-top drama coming up…**

XXX

Mary did not know when she discerned that the sound was occurring in the real world, and not in her dream. She was lying on her side in bed, trapped between fragmented visions in her subconscious and the darkness of her very authentic bedroom. At first, her brain struggled to stay asleep, trying desperately to slip back under and claim a few more winks. But, her body – or else her heart – seemed to feel differently. The noise, whatever it was, was too loud or too strident to be ignored.

At first, her return to awareness was slow, and the sound more irritating than disturbing. But, all of a sudden, certain out-of-place characteristics brought her to life a lot more quickly, like her mind immediately jumped to fast-forward. Her bedroom wasn't dark, as she'd assumed while she was still caught in her dreams. Part of it was cloaked in shadow, but a ray of hallway light was falling onto her rumpled bedspread, casting the space in a harsh yellow. As she realized this, the din grew to be more pronounced.

It was not, as Mary had originally thought, a motorcycle with a bad muffler rounding the corner outside, or the dishwasher acting up in a fit of suds and clanking plates and silverware. It was something far more frightening. Moaning. Groaning. Choking sobs. Hysterical heaves.

This, combined with the mysterious appearance of the illumination, caused Mary to roll right over in bed to ask Marshall what the hell was going on. But, this introduced her to clue number three. Marshall wasn't there.

Foolishly, she did a double-take, as though he might've been hiding beneath the sheets where she couldn't see him. But, two looks did not reveal what one had not; he was gone. And now, when Mary strained her ears for activity, it didn't take long to figure out where the noises were coming from, nor where Marshall had run off to. Mary knew he'd probably woken only two or three minutes before she had, but that was one hundred and twenty seconds too long.

Springing out of bed, she nearly tripped over the blanket on her way to the door and had to throw out a hand to catch herself on the edge of the mattress. Once she had her bearings, she was off and running, pattering down the hallway in her bare feet, passing the girls' bedroom door, which was also open.

All the lights in the living room were on, but the kitchen was still dark, the only glow coming from the clock on the microwave – it read 1:43 AM. But, the time immediately became immaterial once Mary took in the scene in front of her. There was Marshall in his pajama bottoms with the hockey sticks printed on them, the old red T-shirt Mary found to be so soft on his frame. In his arms was Alice; even at a distance, Mary could tell she was shivering, not to mention sobbing – whether from discomfort or fear, it could be either.

There was no time to waste finding out. Mary flew into the room, and up close she saw that Marshall was trying to get a thermometer up to Alice's ear, but she was crying so hard and squirming so much that it was impossible for him to get a read.

"Sugar, hold still for just a second; you can do that for daddy…" he soothed sweetly; his only response was an anguished cry. "I know it hurts, honey…"

The term of endearment, so infrequently used by Marshall with his rough-and-tough girls, was like an alarm going off for Mary. Until now, her husband hadn't seemed to have noticed that she was present. Grabbing his elbow, she forced him to look at her, and she saw nothing but panic in his eyes.

"What's going on?!" she demanded in her most practiced WITSEC voice. "What happened?!"

"I don't know…" his admission was quick, but not painless; if Marshall was without knowledge, they were in trouble. "She's sick; she's obviously sick; she keeps telling me her stomach hurts…"

"How sick?"

"I haven't been able to take her temperature yet."

Not able to be disregarded for long, Alice moaned again, causing a whole new cascade of tears to soak into Marshall's shoulder where her head was buried. This was quite enough for Mary, who was not going to sit idly by. Without even thinking, both of her large hands closed around Alice's waist and pulled her straight out of Marshall's arms and into her own.

"Mommy…" she gulped, half-terrified, half-relieved, clinging to Mary's neck like she was about to plummet off a cliff. "Mommy, my belly hurts…" this confirmed Marshall's diagnosis, not that her little body radiating heat didn't take care of that. "Please fix my belly; please fix it…"

It did not even register with Mary that her six-year-old held enough faith in her to believe she could snap her fingers and whip up a cure in no time flat. Nor did it occur to her that she'd just stepped in and grabbed her child without once considering if her mother was who Alice really wanted. Her baby was sick. That was all that mattered.

"Show me where it hurts," she ordered.

In spite of the pain, Alice managed to untangle herself only briefly to run a hand along the lower right-hand side of her stomach. But, being out of one parent's grasp for even a few seconds caused her to tremble with what appeared to be cold and she immediately snuggled back into Mary's arms, burying her face in her chest.

Mary tried to think, to muster up enough of her mediocre medical training to figure out what might be causing a fever as well as severe abdominal aches. All she'd ever acquired was first aid, which was no help here. Where was Marshall and his wealth of useless, or not so useless, information? Busy wiggling the thermometer into Alice's ear while she wasn't wiggling all over trying to escape what was clearly nauseating pain.

The longer the woman held her, the longer she listened to her wails, muffled though they were in her ribcage, the more horrified Mary became, and the harder it was to hide it.

"Marshall, she's burning up," she voiced, fighting the urge to let her tone rise.

"I know…" he reciprocated. "I know. If her fever's above a hundred and one, I think we need to take her to the emergency room."

"What's wrong with her?"

"I don't know…" apparently, he had gained nothing in the past few minutes, and he pushed his already unkempt hair off his forehead, waiting for the thermometer to register. "She could have food poisoning, I guess…"

"From what? What could she have eaten?"

Marshall turned to his daughter, trying to locate her eyes where they were submerged in Mary's neck.

"Alice, do you think you're gonna throw up?"

All this earned him was a whimper; poorly as she felt, it was evidently too hard to discern just what was causing her such grief. Kids said their stomachs ached all the time; it could've been a piercing stab, it could've been a rolling pitch that meant she would lose that ice cream she'd eaten any second now. It was maddening, having to guess this way; it was like Alice was a baby again, wailing because she had no other outlet to express her pain.

"Mommy, I want medicine…" she whined. "Give me medicine…"

This, if nothing else, showed how desperate she was to end the suffering. Alice was notoriously terrible at swallowing anything flavored and syrupy; in her toddlerhood, she had spit out many spoonfuls her parents had tried to ram down her throat.

"I don't have anything to give you, Little Bit, not until I know what's wrong…" Mary confessed miserably, shifting her higher onto her hips. "Don't cry…" she really didn't think this would stop her, but she said it anyway. "You're gonna be okay; we're gonna figure this out…"

"I don't want to be sick…" she wept, not heeding Mary's advice. "What about Halloween? I don't have a costume…"

This combination of denial and fresh six-year-old disappointment put a stinging nick into Mary's heart. Here were her parents, fretting themselves into pieces because she could've contracted some deadly disease, and she was thinking about the upcoming holiday. Innocence was both a blessing and a curse.

"You won't miss Halloween…" the woman promised unwisely, her mouth running ahead of her mind. "You're gonna get better tomorrow and daddy or Brandi will go get you a costume and you'll make it to the party at school on Friday; we'll trick-or-treat and you'll make yourself sick all over again from the pounds of candy you're gonna get from the neighbors…"

Her big, fat lie was sliced in half by a tormented howl, causing Mary to leap about a foot in the air, which meant she had to make sure she wasn't going to drop her daughter and cause her more damage. You'd have thought someone had sliced her through with a knife, and both mother and father were upon her at once, demanding to know her ailments.

"What is it?"

"What hurts?"

"Tell me, sugar…"

"What happened?"

"My tummy!" Alice shrieked, tears streaming down her face. "I'm gonna die; I'm gonna die and what if I go to hell…?"

"You're not going to die!" Mary barked, cursing herself for sounding angry, but unable to reconcile a child so small uttering those words. "Marshall, what is going on?!" turning her fury onto him, eyes blazing as she cuddled Alice's quivering body close in her chest. "What the hell is wrong with the thermometer?!"

"Don't yell at me," his tone was intense, lower and scarier than hers. "It's old; maybe it's broken; I don't even know if it still…" As if on cue, it went off in a flurry of beeping, signaling a read at last. "There it is; there it is…"

"What does it say?"

She stepped to one side to attempt to squint at the little screen, but glare from the lamp prevented her from seeing the block numbers on green background. Her arms began to ache from trying to keep Alice aloft, but she just hitched her higher and fondled her disarray curls, trying to ignore her ascending sobs.

"I can't see it…" her impatience caught up with her quickly. "What's it…?"

Marshall's face suddenly turned chalk white; the calm he was so good at possessing still resided somewhere in his narrow, angular features, but the stubble on his chin became more pronounced and his blue eyes stood out starkly in his pale face.

"It's a hundred and three," he said in a hushed voice, scarcely heard over Alice's meltdown.

Mary's bones went rigid, but she forced herself not to come undone. She would be businesslike; she would be matter-of-fact. She would not show how horrified this report made her, would not admit that _she_ was now the one afraid Alice would perish, whatever she told her daughter about the possibilities being slim. It was nothing. It was a fever and a stomachache. That was nothing. Nothing that somebody couldn't repair.

Nothing or not, there was no pretending now. Marshall had granted the stipulations when she'd first come bolting out of the bedroom, and he couldn't change his mind now that they were in this deep.

"Let's go; we're going to the hospital; let's go…"

Denial had forever been Mary's best friend, "Shouldn't we call someone first?"

But, her husband was already rushing around at top speed, flinging the thermometer onto the counter, snatching blankets from the sofa, grabbing his cell phone from the nearest end table.

"Whom do you suggest we call?" he asked agitatedly, even as he ran back down the hallway and returned with one of Alice's stuffed animals. "We go, we find out what's up…"

"Well, but…a doctor…" Mary sputtered. "Before we go jumping to conclusions…" she knew she was rocking Alice wildly with all her turning to keep Marshall in her line of sight, but she didn't halt her movements. "I mean, let's just…"

"There are doctors at the hospital, Mary," he sounded exasperated and harried, but softened his approach when he tucked a plush rabbit into Alice's arms. "I know you like that one; he's one of your favorites…" he crooned sweetly.

"Then, forget the doctors…!" the blonde's voice was inching up hysterically, and no matter how she tried to keep it in check, it was to no avail. "We don't need them; we can do this on our own, this is not that big of a deal!"

"Do _you_ know what's going on?" Marshall was uncharacteristically snappy, not giving his wife any wiggle room; he even stopped his mad search of the house to get up in her face. "Because, I don't! So, if you can think of someone that can tell us what else to do, hurry up!"

"Don't get mad at me!" her feelings were unexpectedly scarred by his attitude. "I'm not the one that said she was fine this morning!"

It was a low blow, and Marshall obviously thought so too, "Why on earth would you say a thing like that?!"

"Let me call someone first!"

"Who?!"

"I don't…I don't…!"

A porcelain face with deep jade eyes and dark brunette hair suddenly sprung into Mary's mind. She needed a mother. Mothers knew about sick children. But, she didn't have her mother. Jinx was no help. There was no other mother to call.

But, Mary didn't give up, inventing wildly on the spot just to prove to Marshall she wasn't making irrational demands.

"Joanna!" it came in a silly spit out. "Joanna – she was a principal for God knows how many years; she raised a kid; she'll know…"

Marshall didn't have any tolerance for her games; he swept this aside as though it were a dust bunny.

"You call Mark, let him know what's going on so that he can brief Norah in the morning, and then get your stuff and get in the car…"

"What about Knox?!"

She was grasping wildly at straws now, forgetting all about Alice and focusing only on her own selfish fears. The dog was, and had been since the storm had broke, huddled under the kitchen table with his head on his paws away from all the noise.

"Stan can look in on him for us in the morning if we're gone that long," Marshall insisted. And then, "Now, either give her to me so I can get her in the car, or get moving!"

Mary thought she must be frozen to the spot. Her head was telling her to listen to her husband, that he always knew best, and that he wasn't going to fail her now. But, her feet wouldn't trace the required steps. She should feel grateful that she had a man that was willing to take charge like this no matter how insanely his heart was beating, but she couldn't squash the uncontrollable urge to shove him or shut him up.

Hospitals brought her nothing but bad news – the worst news of her life. Jinx, too drunk to see straight, hooked up to an IV line, countless hazardous witnesses that had landed themselves with broken bones because they couldn't follow the rules; their injuries or demise happening on her watch. James, missing from his bed, only a pile of bloody sheets left behind. And Jinx in the morgue, bypassing the hospital completely.

But, Marshall was not his usual sympathetic self. Mary and her unresolved demons could not have been further from his mind. His little girl was in danger, and he wasn't going to wait for his partner to catch up.

"Hand her to me!" he bellowed so loudly it was daunting, like the devil himself had erupted from his chest. "Stay or don't, but she needs help!"

To Mary's horror, he tried to take Alice forcibly, both of them having to scream over her howls, but she held fast as though she were a prize to be won.

"No!" it hurt her throat to screech so viciously.

"Give her to me!"

"No!"

"Then I'll call an ambulance and they can be the ones to take her from you! Is that what you want?!"

"Don't touch the phone!" Mary saw his hand go to his pocket.

"Get in the car!"

"We're not going anywhere!"

"For God's sake…"

He was done with her and her rejection; there were more important matters at stake. Not caring one iota how she might despise him for it, he yanked Alice from her grasp so roughly that he was afraid of hurting her; he was stronger than Mary and could force her to relinquish her grip if he really tried, and now was the time. His daughter groaned wretchedly with the passage, which caused Marshall to forget that Mary was even standing there to focus on tending to her every need.

"We're going to the hospital, Big Al; they're going to find out what's wrong with you…" he tried to make his voice optimistic, but it was shaking. "You've got your rabbit and I've got your blanket; is there anything else you want before we leave?"

"I want mommy…"

The request was only three words, but it came milliseconds after Marshall had proposed the question. Even in her haze of foreboding, Alice was aware of the one thing that she couldn't leave home without. Disoriented, she might be, but she knew she had been stripped from the arms she craved, even if it had been for her own good.

"I want mommy; I want mommy…"

Even Marshall, in his fury at his stubborn, irrational wife, knew that hearing this over and over was enough to send Mary to the end of the earth if need be, no matter how treacherous the trek. Always, from day one, when there was trouble afoot, daddy was the solution. Daddy put on the band-aids, daddy kissed the scrapes, daddy watched the dance moves, daddy gave the tickles; daddy did it all. Mary was background scenery.

But, here, in the face of the unknown, it wasn't Marshall whom Alice was yearning for. It was her mother. And, Mary knew it was petty, knew it was selfish to a sickening level, but she was pleased. More pleased than she'd ever dare say out loud.

"You go to mommy…" the chief instructed at once, knowing he wouldn't have to fight any longer. Passing her back from where she'd come, "You guys can sit in the back together and I'll drive."

Following his instructions, her feet and legs getting the message now, Mary followed him to the door, having the presence of mind to grab her own cell phone on the way out. She called a jumbled goodbye to Knox, as if he could understand her, wanting absurdly to apologize for all the ruckus they'd caused and leaving him alone in the middle of the night. She wanted to throttle Norah for not remembering to take him with her to Mark's.

The night air was almost refreshing on her skin as she hit the front porch and turned around to lock the door. Quickly, however, the breeze became cold and damp, causing goose bumps to arise on her bare arms; she hadn't thought to grab a jacket. Alice shuddered so violently in the nippy autumn wind that it was as though she might be having a seizure. Mary whispered in her ear that they'd be warm soon, wishing she'd been the one to hold the blanket.

Instead of heeding Marshall's advice and hopping into the backseat, Mary threw caution to the winds and clambered into the front, holding Alice on her lap. Seatbelts were a thing of the past, and in a distant corner of her mind, she knew how unsafe this was, that if she caught anyone speeding down the street in this arrangement she'd have written a ticket faster than you could blink. But, desperate times called for desperate measures, and she could always rely on her Marshal title if they were pulled over – never mind that she wasn't carrying her badge.

And, even in spite of his frustrations with her, she wanted to be close to Marshall. How would he know what was happening if they were buried in the shadows in his rearview mirror?

"I'm going to Mesa Regional…" he announced as he buckled his own belt and jammed the key in the ignition. "It's closest."

"Fine."

Both Norah and Alice had been born at Mesa Regional. Jinx had been taken Mountain View when she'd died. That was something.

"Did you call Mark?"

"I'll call when I have something to tell him."

"What about Brandi?"

"Her too. I don't want them coming down to the hospital in the middle of the night and making a fuss."

Marshall seemed to accept this and changed tack at the speed of light, constantly turning his eyes from the twilit road in front of him to check on Alice, who was curled in a ball in Mary's lap.

"Show mommy where your belly hurts again," he directed with more pointed glances. "Put your hand in the spot."

No doubt growing tired of this appeal, Alice still unclenched herself to do as asked, her face a mess of snot and tears, shoulders trembling and hiccups rising from her throat. Mary watched as she tentatively touched the spot, trying to glean anything she could from the location, but she had not a clue. Marshall, apparently too careful to continue looking away from the minimal traffic, demanded a diagnosis of Mary.

"Where is she pointing?"

"Uh…I don't know…" she stammered dumbly, thinking the dark was obstructing her vision. "Lower right…sort of. Like, near her belly button…"

"Maybe it's her intestines; a blockage or something…"

"I…I don't know…"

"I don't think it could be her colon, but I guess…"

"She's too young for it to be her colon; you've gotta be kidding me…"

"Her bladder? Maybe even her gallbladder?"

"She's six, not sixty! It can't possibly…"

"It's her appendix!"

The epiphany was so noisy that it even drowned Alice's bawling, at least momentarily. All of Marshall's random guessing seemed to have finally clicked into a plausible culprit; he'd spun through every ailment like there was a rolodex in his brain and he'd skipped the 'A' card the first time through. His projected certainty buoyed Mary to new heights, made her shirk off even a tiny portion of her trepidation. If he was right, they just might be in the clear; appendicitis was nothing in contrast to so many other weaknesses.

His azure eyes were coming to life in the flashes from the streetlamps through the windows. He wasn't willing to commit, but he was hopeful.

"Her appendix…" Mary repeated breathlessly.

"That has to be what it is!" or just what he wanted it to be. "It has to be; her hand is right in that spot, and all the symptoms match…"

"Are you sure?"

"It has to be…" he repeated, wagging his head side-to-side. "We'll find out, but it has to be…"

"You're right," Mary had the sudden need to make up for her foolishness, to show him she trusted him implicitly. "I know you're right. She's gonna be okay…" Tipping her chin down to speak to Alice directly, "Alice, everything's gonna be fine. They'll take your appendix out and you'll be back on your feet before you know it…"

"I'm scared…" she sniveled, resting her cheek right over Mary's heart, dampening her shirt with tears. "I need my appendix…"

"No, you don't," Mary insisted, praying to God that Marshall knew what he was talking about, because she was accepting his assumption as the gospel. "It's useless; it'll be more of a nuisance to you in than out at this point…"

"I'm scared…" nothing could deter her thoughts from the fear of the unfamiliar. "I don't want to go, I don't want them to take anything; I'm scared, mommy…"

"Don't be," she murmured, knowing it wasn't so simple, but not knowing how else to soothe her. "You can take whatever they throw at you; you're my brave girl…"

"I'm not brave…" Alice trembled sadly, sniffling audibly in the small space of the car. " _You're_ brave. _Norah's_ brave. Nothing scares you."

How Mary wished, fiercely wished, for that to be true. Once upon a time, her own façade had been pretty good at convincing her of what she projected to the outside world – she was fearless, she was daring, she would fly from the jungle gym like a bird, jump into the creek like a fish no matter how fast it was rushing.

She could stare down the perpetrator with one eye closed and both hands tied behind her back, coming out only to fire her gun without a second's hesitation. She'd been chained in a basement, gunned down in the street, watched her best friend crumple into the dirt and take what she was certain might be his last breath. After all that, what was there to be afraid of? She could stand up to anything; she would win every time.

But, the longer her life stretched on, the bigger and more insurmountable her fears became. Maybe because she had something to lose, when for so long she felt she'd had only herself to rely upon, and so nothing to allow to slip beneath the cracks. And while she was moved by Alice's blind devotion, especially coming from a daughter that she'd so often believed saw her as a tagalong to her radiant father, she couldn't let her go on thinking something that wasn't true.

And, in any case, she thought showing that they were both mortals, neither one more propped on the pedestal than the other, might be the biggest aide to her little girl right now. Everybody hurt, inside and out.

"Lots of things scare me, babe…" pulling Robyn's old nickname out of the woodwork as she watched her gorgeous face turn from light to dark in the whizzing headlights. "More than you'll ever know. It's not gonna do to think otherwise."

Alice was quick, given her condition, "Like what?" she squeaked pitifully.

"Let's just say I've been scared lots of times," Mary amended briefly. "Scout's honor."

"When?"

The car was quiet for a moment; the only sound the tires against the road in the early morning hours and Marshall's somewhat-less-rapid breathing. Alice was still shivering, but her eyes were open, her face tearstained as she gazed in wonder up at her mother; not a single drop fell as she waited, ravenous for what her supposedly courageous mother had nightmares about.

"I was terrified when Norah was born…"

"Really?"

"Mmm hmm…" she hummed. "She was way too early and way too little and I was _way_ not ready."

"You weren't?"

"Nope," shaking her head. "And, I was scared when you were born too. I was worried I didn't have it in me to be a mom again – or at least not as _good_ a mom, especially compared to dad over there…"

"For real?"

"Yep…" it was heartening that she was mellowing out, though her body was still very warm. "And, I cried worse than you're crying right now when Brandi had Robyn."

"You did?"

"Uh-huh…" hopefully Marshall wouldn't use this against her in the future to prove she was human, all these instances of her vulnerability. "It didn't go the way it was supposed to, and Robyn was fine, but Brandi passed out and I couldn't get her to answer me. I was really afraid then."

"But, Brandi was okay…"

"She was," Mary agreed. "Just like Norah was okay when she ran away all those years ago. But, that didn't stop me being frightened. I don't know what I would've done if she'd never come home."

There were countless other occasions in which Mary had lost her head, convinced the sky had been falling, but there was no point mentioning all the times the clouds might really have crashed down and crushed her. Bullets, thugs, drug deals, smoky barns, and dimly lit basements, for starters. Her heartbeat was slowing down just being able to feel Alice's nerves stop jangling, but no six year old needed to hear that their mother – or anyone – had gone through ordeals like those.

"Why don't you try to rest, Little Bit?" she suggested somewhat numbly. "Try to forget about your stomach for awhile."

But, Alice wasn't finished, "What about when Jinx died? Were you scared then?"

It didn't really matter if the blonde confirmed this or not, because she could tell her little girl already knew the answer. But, she could feel Marshall's eyes flick over to watch her and then instantly back to the road. In the dark, she could legitimately pretend not to have noticed.

"Yeah, I was…" she whispered, doing what she could not to sound theatrical. "Same thing when I lost James…"

It made the taste on her tongue bitter to refer to him by his first name, but since she'd owned up to those fears, she might as well reveal the biggest one of all.

"And, when my daddy left…"

She'd been this age. The age of the child nestled in her arms. Almost to the day, they were matched. Alice was shy of seven years old by less than a month. Looking into her wondrous, expectant face, a face that said Mary held all the secrets and the resolutions, she was struck for the first time that there were commonalities in their features. Long ago, Mary had known what it was like to hope, to desire, to plead on your hands and knees for something that might not ever arrive.

For Alice, especially at this moment, it was the need to be brave, to be like her mother and her big sister, and to be loved by them the way her father adored her. For Mary, it was praying for acceptance – acceptance that life would kick her as hard as it had when James had walked out the door. But, if she'd survived then, she could survive now. And that Norah, rejecting as she was, was not James.

"When my dad left…Jesus…" she didn't keep a lid on the cursing this time. "God, I was scared. I was _so_ scared."

From the wheel came Marshall's hand to rest on her knee – praise for settling down, for opening up, and confronting the fiends head on.

"Are you scared right now, mommy?" Alice inquired in a small voice.

And the mask went back up. It was cathartic to share, to let yourself be seen, wounds and all. But, Mary hadn't forgotten how to hide. It was time to put her cloak back on.

"No…" her smile was convincing, even through the midnight gloom. "Not even a little bit. You're a big girl, and there's nothing to be afraid of, because you're gonna be just fine."

"I will?"

"You will," Mary recapped soundly. "Cross my heart."

XXX

 **A/N: Something has to bring everyone together, and I am no stranger to theatrics. ;)**


	35. Chapter 35

**A/N: Yet more drama…but, it pretty much ceases after this chapter, so hopefully that's good…**

XXX

The hospital was a flurry of activity, the emergency room filled with people who, unfortunately, looked to be in far worse shape than Alice. Mary tried not to inch away from the homeless individuals, with their overflowing bags and hacking coughs, but the other options weren't very appetizing either. One woman had an enormous towel wrapped around one leg, and blood had already seeped through the fabric, staining it dark red. A little boy not much older than Alice was covered in what looked like a nasty rash and was itching and whimpering at constant, to continued shushes from his mother. Mary held Alice, wrapped in a blanket, and tried to turn her face away from all the unpleasantness.

It felt as though an endless amount of time had gone by before they were finally admitted through the double doors, an eventuality that turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. It was far quieter in the main wing of the hospital and more peaceful still upstairs in the pediatric ward; a waiting room separated them from horror here. Unfortunately, a brisk, no-nonsense nurse informed Mary and Marshall that only one of them would be allowed to accompany Alice to an exam room.

They protested, they pleaded, they pointed out Alice's obvious anguish, insisting that one should not be forced to remain behind with nary a scrap of news. Marshall even sunk as low as to dig his badge out of his pocket, before he remembered he was wearing pajamas and his five-point star was on the bedside table at home. No dice. Parents made the examination more difficult, the professional claimed; too much emotion and too many bodies. One, and if they didn't stop arguing, it was going to be none.

And so, because Alice's aspirations could not be denied, Mary was the one to proceed to get some answers, leaving Marshall stranded on his own, nothing to do but wait and worry. Unlike in the emergency room, he could not even people-watch his time away, scrutinizing ailments and injuries to pass the seconds. There was almost no one in the children's ward, minus a woman in a power suit with cropped blonde hair and a cell phone quite possibility permanently affixed to her ear. Marshall found himself hoping she was a family friend of someone in trouble, and not a mother, because any parent that could show up at the hospital at two in the morning dressed like that could not be much of a parent.

The two receptionists kept to themselves, and other than nurses passing in and out with clipboards, Marshall was alone. Over and over, he told himself that his intelligence had not failed him. His medical knowledge might not be extensive, but he knew where the appendix was. Alice was a classic patient. If it was not this, but something far worse, he didn't know what he would do with himself. She was his baby. What he was doing out here instead of behind the double doors smoothing her hair and kissing her cheeks was beyond him.

The area of couches and chairs was cheery enough, if not overly inviting. Battered children's books littered a coffee table, and a whole stack of ancient Highlights magazines was nearby. There was a somewhat cozy-looking nook in the corner with a plastic playhouse so tiny even a three year old might bump their head, and well-used toys were tucked up next to it – wooden block puzzles, a bead maze, a plush penguin with its stuffing popping out. On the walls were creations, no doubt made by kids to whom the hospital was a more permanent home – paper plates with googly eyes glued on, construction paper chains, and snapshots of children with their hair missing.

So absorbed in taking in his surroundings so he wouldn't dwell, Marshall gave a pronounced leap when his cell phone went off beside him on the hard brown sofa. He'd been keeping it nearby, due to his lack of pockets, and one glance at the screen showed him it was Stan. Feeling badly for having bothered the man at such an hour was immediately eclipsed by knowing he would have someone to talk to. He seized the phone and put it to his ear at once.

"Hello?" his voice was raspy, partially sleep-dusted and partially fraught with unshed tears.

"Hey, I got your message…" Stan sounded tired too, but strangely alert and definitely urgent. "What's going on? You won't be in tomorrow?"

Why it had seemed vital to Marshall to put this news out in the open while Alice was all-but perishing before their very eyes, he couldn't know. His subconscious must've really been pining for a friendly tone.

"No…no, I won't…" he stammered, knowing the voicemail he'd left had been vague and nonspecific. "Mary won't either."

"What's up?" Stan pressed, probably having sensed something from the nature of the message that had led him to call back so readily. "Is it the girls?"

"Alice…" he breathed agitatedly, suddenly feeling oddly exposed in his faded red shirt and boyish pajama bottoms; it was lucky virtually no one was around. "We had to take her to the ER."

If he cried with Stan on the other end of the line, he would be humiliated. It would be such a juvenile thing to do, like he was a teenager whose heart had been stomped on by some blonde bimbo. Alice's symptoms did not indicate anything life-threatening, and yet the stress seemed to have overcome him to the point of no return. He wanted to be with his daughter. He wanted Mary back.

"The ER?" Stan repeated incredulously, and there was a rustling coming from the speaker now, like he was sitting up in bed. "Why? Is she okay?"

"I don't know…" Marshall battled to keep his vocal chords from trembling, but it wasn't easy. "She went to bed not feeling well and woke up with a hundred and three degree fever – says her stomach is killing her. I didn't know what else to do; I don't know what's wrong with her. Mary's with her now, she said she'd let me know as soon as she had something to tell me…"

His run-on sentence was almost as embarrassing as descending into a tantrum would've been. He sounded so incoherent, so flustered, something that was not like him at all. He was supposed to be the serene one, the one that could stand up against all odds, the one that held his own while everyone else fell to pieces. The way his tranquility was failing him was so frustrating and, yet, perhaps just a little liberating as well.

"Is there something I can do?" Stan's ingrained instinct to take action like the seasoned Marshal he was could not be tamped down. "Call someone? Where's Norah?"

"Norah's with Mark and Jill," Marshall reported. "Mary already told him what's up and she let Brandi in on it too, so I don't think there's really anyone else to tell…"

"Do you want me to come down there?" he asked instantly, willing to throw on clothes and toil through the dark streets in a heartbeat. "Me or Lia? Both of us?"

"That…that's really okay…" Marshall only said this because he knew Mary would turn it down; to him, a visit from Stan sounded pretty good. "Thank-you, but its okay. Mary and I will need you at the office, and you can't do anything here anyway…"

"I can be there," the older man reminded him kindly. And then, neglecting Marshall for a moment, his voice grew tinny, probably because he'd moved his mouth away from the speaker. "Yeah…yeah, it's Marshall…"

Lia, the man himself thought. Stan's hurry to be of assistance had likely shaken her from her slumber, and he was doing her the courtesy of filling her in.

"Alice is in the hospital…"

A pause while Marshall let out a long, low breath.

"Don't know yet…"

More waiting.

"That's what I said, but he says they're good…"

With this, Stan's timbre became clear and bold again, and the chief just hoped he wasn't going to be pressured into granting sanction for visitors. He didn't know if he could say no another time, and then he would be dealing with Mary's ire at having people see them so rattled along with everything else.

"You keep me updated, you hear?" it was like he was the boss again, a role that Marshall found strangely comforting. "And you call me back the second you want some company."

"Is that an order?" the taller managed a weak, feeble joke.

"You bet it is."

But, before Marshall could finagle any promises on his or Mary's behalf, his wife appeared through the double doors at the far end of the room. She, like him, was still in her sleepwear – grey drawstring pants and a pale purple thermal shirt. Hair uncombed, tangled, and pushed behind her ears, her eyes were flying frantically left-to-right, as though she were searching for her husband through a nonexistent crowd.

His heart gave a sadistic bound at the sight of her, even if Alice wasn't with her, and he bounced off the couch as though he'd been sitting on a pincushion, nearly dropping his phone in the process.

"Mary's here…" he chattered at Stan. "I'll talk to you soon…"

"Give the girls my best."

"Yeah, of course…"

It took him less than a millisecond to hang up, hoping only dimly that he not offended Stan by not saying a proper goodbye. Finding him, which couldn't have been too difficult, Mary rushed over, nearly skidding in the moccasin slippers she had put on in their departure of the house. Her mouth was open and running off before she had even reached him, trumpeting the news as though they were continuing a conversation that had never been left off.

"That's what it was…"

She was breathless, forgetting all about specifying her pronouns, but Marshall knew her well enough to recognize what she was talking about. Still, he didn't want to leap too soon, to let go of his apprehension before the gun went off.

"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"

Mary gripped his elbow hard and fast, "It's appendicitis; she has appendicitis…"

"She does?" Marshall's knees went weak, and he was suddenly glad Mary was holding onto him.

"Yeah, she does," his wife recapped, shoulders slumping in recognition. "You were right; it was her appendix…"

"Has it ruptured?" his mouth was dry, knowing his aptitude had not carried them to the finish line just yet. "Because if it ruptures, then she could get an infection; it can cause septicemia…"

Mary shook her head at once, ridding him of this notion, but she did not loosen her hold on his arm.

"It hasn't ruptured; they did an ultrasound, and it's still intact…" bless her for paying such close attention; Marshall feasted on such detail he had not been around to witness. "They think she'll be fine through the night; they gave her something for the pain, and they've scheduled her for surgery tomorrow morning."

"Today, you mean?" he wondered, thinking the woman might've overlooked the early hour.

"Yeah, that's right…" she wagged her head again, as though warding off a fly. "She's supposed to go into the OR around nine or ten o'clock. About seven hours from now, give or take…"

"How is she?"

"She's okay…" Mary was well aware this was the information he craved most of all. "Still awake, blew the roof off screaming when they put her IV in…"

Marshall winced, but cautioned himself to keep listening.

"But, better now that they've drugged her up, not so hysterical…"

"Good…good…"

"They said we can both go back in-in a few minutes, they just wanted some time to get her vitals again…"

This was all he was going to learn, and it was enough for now. The relief that was flooding into his soul was both healing and smothering. All the emotion he'd been striving so hard to keep inside came leaking out as he went limp; all his fingers began to tingle and, though he should've been over the moon, he suddenly felt distraught. It wasn't like him to be so cynical, to continually expect the worst even when they were out of the woods.

But, as a parent – a true parent, not a step-parent – he had never experienced this kind of raw fear, not the way that Mary had. Frenzied as she'd been, she'd successfully stepped into an old mold after awhile. Marshall had not had the same luck and the way he was about to collapse in a heap on the ground must've shown on his face somewhere. Mary saved him from near faint and pulled him into her arms, her head resting beneath his chin.

She felt so good against him, so secure, like her body alone was proof enough that there was light at the end of the tunnel. And yet, her show of affection was surprising and it did nothing to stop the waterworks.

"It's just her appendix; she doesn't even need the damn thing…" Mary was not crying, but back to cracking wise. "We dodged a bullet; we really did…"

Marshall wanted so much to answer, to concur with her respite, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out was a tiny sob. It was restrained, more like a squeaking exhale than anything, but it didn't get by Mary. Rather than wiggle free to gawk into his features, she squeezed his back with her long fingers, enlightened to be the strong one for once.

"Don't, Marshall…" her voice was soft when she used it, and understanding as well. "Don't. She's all right; you can see her in five…"

"Right…" he sniveled somewhat pathetically.

"It's nothing, just like we said. Don't go to the worst case scenario…"

"Yeah…I know…"

"She'll have the operation, she'll feel better, she'll be home by the weekend…"

"She'll miss Halloween…"

This was a devoted dad, Mary thought lovingly as she let out a sad laugh, patting his back before she released herself from his rubbery arms. Who gave a shit about Halloween, given the circumstances? Alice, that was who, and so, by association, Marshall. He knew how much the holiday meant to his little girl, how she had been languishing over the perfect costume, yet to have been found. He was banking on her being disappointed when she connected the dots, and so he would be disappointed for her.

But, much as she loved Alice, Mary didn't share the same sentiment. She just shook her head, still with a somewhat drunken half-smile on her face, and reached up to wipe the few stray tears on Marshall's cheeks.

"She'll get over that…" her claim was dismissive. "It'll make a great story down the road, right?"

"Yeah…" Marshall stated huskily. "Yeah, I guess so…"

"Relax, Marshall, okay?" she beseeched him once again, but tenderly and without heat. "This wasn't earth-shattering; it was a blip on the radar…"

But, before the man could concur with his wife, say that he knew they needn't lose sleep anymore now that they had such a seemingly minor diagnosis, the sound of rushing footsteps met their ears. Both turned their heads in the direction of the elevator to see three people come around the corner, also dressed in pajamas, although this trio had-had the sense to put on coats and actual shoes. It was amazing, what you were afforded with just a little bit of headway, what you could piece together when you weren't directly in the line of fire.

Mark and Jill came into view, not running, but definitely in a hurry; Jill in floppy pants and a sweatshirt, Mark in plaid bottoms and an undershirt he'd covered up with an expensive faux-leather jacket so that he looked comically mismatched. On the end was Norah, giant T-shirt that reached her knees, sweatpants, and all. They had spectacular bed heads and frantic looks on their faces, but it appeared none of them had expected to find Mary and Marshall quite so quickly.

However, whatever respite Mary had been feeling seconds before suddenly evaporated without warning. She wanted to steal away with Marshall, take him by the hand and whisk him off to Alice, separate from these three, whom she had specifically told not to show their faces. Well, she'd told Mark, anyway, and the fact that he had not obeyed her request spiked her ire in no time flat. Like Marshall, her relief that things were okay flipped upside-down into misery. But, in her case, the misery came in the form of resentment, not melancholy.

"What are you doing here?" she wanted to know at once, not specifying to whom she was speaking. "It's three in the morning – I said for you to stay home!" this time, she bit directly at Mark, because it was he who had refused to comply.

Her ex wasn't the one who answered, though. That job belonged to Norah.

"Where's Alice?" it was more of a query than a flat out demand, which said she wasn't completely rattled by the news, but definitely hankering for an update. "Is she okay; do you know what's wrong with her?"

Mary ignored her older daughter in favor of rounding fully on Mark.

"Do you listen?" she sniped petulantly. "What does, 'do not come down here?' mean to you?" it was late, she was exhausted, and the worry was catching up with her. "It means keep your damn distance, you understand me?!"

Normally, Marshall would've been talking her down, but he seemed too dazed to do much of anything, just focusing on mopping up his eyes so he didn't look the basket case he might have soon become.

"We were concerned!" Mark bleated shrilly, rallying fast. "We wanted to help, and when Norah heard about…"

The inspector cut him off, "Who is 'we,' exactly?"

By the way her eyes flashed in Jill's direction, she did not need Mark to confirm why he spoke in the plural these days. It was no secret he was not referring solely to him and Norah. Abruptly, the fact that this stranger, this intruder, was inserting herself into their family business when she was not now, not ever, part of the group, was infuriating. Mary wanted to hit her, but knew she would get little satisfaction from it; Mark was who she was really heated with.

And, when he faltered and stumbled on his words, it just made her madder.

"All…all of us…" it sounded like his voice box was vibrating. "Me, Norah, Jill…"

That did it.

"Go the hell home!" she screamed, fortunate no one was around to hear her rant and rave like a crazy person. "We don't need your pity – we sure as hell don't need anything from _her!_ " she sounded just like Norah, singling Jill out. "Alice is _our_ family, not hers! You can't just show up here and act like you're one of us!" now she snapped at the woman directly, eyes bulging in her head. "It doesn't work that way! You make your own brood and stay away from ours!"

Mark, rightfully so, was scandalized by this show of infantile behavior and Norah looked flabbergasted. She herself could do a doozy on people, but her mother? This was new territory.

"How dare you talk to her that way!" Mark bellowed, forgetting the ordeal his ex had been through. "Jill has been nothing but kind to all of you; she's the one making an effort! You're the one standing around acting high and mighty like our family is trailer trash compared to yours!"

"I don't want her here; I don't want any of you here!"

"Marshall, what's the matter with Alice?" Norah pleaded, tugging on his shirt to get his attention. "Where is she?"

"I really should go…" there was Jill, wising up.

"Yes, you should!"

"No, she shouldn't!" Mark broke in furiously. "She cares about Alice just like I do! She's Norah's sister for Christ sakes; we have every right to…"

"You're not going to talk to me about rights!" Mary was truly around the bend now; any second she could be claimed certifiable. "Alice is nothing to you! She is mine! Mine and Marshall's! You worry about your own kid and stay the hell away from mine!"

"What is going on?!"

As if the scene could not get any more chaotic and helter-skelter, as if Mary needed more reasons to blow her top, a second crowd of people suddenly crashed into their midst – people she had also told not to show their faces in the hospital.

Brandi, Peter, and both kids barreled in, and if they hadn't been hectic just waiting on tenterhooks for Alice's condition, they certainly were now, finding Mary and Mark nose to nose like they were about to throw punches when the bell sounded. But, livid as the inspector was that Brandi had taken it upon herself to wake her children and drag them to the hospital when she'd told her to stay put, she only had eyes for Mark.

Every malicious, rotten thing she had ever felt about him in the last several weeks was boiling over like water on the stove, whether he had earned any of it or not. The way he had the audacity to be happy when she was so depressed over Norah, the way he could start anew without looking back, his willingness to try again in spite of his daughter's struggles. His sickly impish grin and his immaturity about his impending marriage, like he was some moony-eyed teenager stealing kisses at his locker. Jill's relationship with Alice and the way her little one had taken to her in a way that she'd never taken to Mary. Mark's ability to rise above the one dark spot in his life – Norah – and move forward, trusting time and patience to guide them both through.

Mary was none of those things. She festered. She agonized. She saw no hope and no future for any of them until Norah found her groove again. And, right now, she hated Mark and Jill for their optimism and their tireless attempts to make nice. Illogical, yes, but Mary was not in a logical place.

"I'm not going to stand for this anymore, Mary!" Mark didn't even seem to have noticed Brandi, Peter, and the kids. "My life is my own, and if you're too small of a person to…"

"Then go _live_ your life!" she spat back at him. "Who's stopping you?! You don't need my blessing!"

"Jill is going to be my wife, and you damn well better drudge up some respect when she's around, or else…"

"Or else, _what?_ "

"Or else…!"

He wanted to hurt her; she deserved it. But, his mind was too far gone to see the repercussions of what speaking without thinking would do.

"Or else maybe I'll go 'live _my_ life!' With _my_ daughter! I can go back to Jersey, and I can take Norah with me!"

" _What?!"_ Norah herself shrieked.

"You are a sick bastard; you know that?! You're really sick!"

"You all need to calm down; just stop it…" Brandi gave a meek attempt at being the voice of reason, inserting herself between the two parties, but they just hollered around her.

"Dad, what happened to Alice?" Robyn moaned at Peter, her hand covering Max's. "Is she even here? What if something…?"

"Mom, can he do that?!"

Mary paid Norah no mind, "You think you would stand a chance in court, you douche bag?!"

"Pull the Marshal card, why don't you?!"

"I will! And not only wouldn't you be going anywhere, you could have your little family of three, but it wouldn't include _my_ kid!"

"Mary, enough!" Brandi could scarcely be heard over the kids and their protests, the adults and their mud-slinging, Marshall having faded into the woodwork. "You don't mean that; neither one of you mean that! You're upset…"

"You're damn right I'm upset!" the older sister attempted to shove Brandi to the side, but she planted her feet. "He's a piss poor excuse for a human being, showing up here pretending he can worm his way in when he feels like it and then running off and knocking some chick up on the weekends…"

"SHUT UP!" Mark roared.

"Mark, don't…!"

"You shut up and get out of here!"

"Then I'm taking Norah with me!"

"She's not your property, asshat!"

"Sit down; just sit down, and…!"

"Dad, I want to see Alice! Please!"

"I don't even know what's wrong with her!"

"I'm taking one of you out of here right now if you don't…!"

"Take Jill! She's the one who doesn't belong with us!"

"God damn it, Mary! I'm gonna…"

"You're gonna what?!"

"I'm gonna…!"

"STOP-STOP-STOP-STOP-STOP!"

At first, Mary thought it was Brandi shrieking like a siren, so lost she was in her own fury, her desire to take Mark's throat in both hands and kick him to the curb for daring to intimidate her over Norah. The pitch was certainly high enough to have belonged to an uproarious little sister that was aching just trying to get the argument to come to a halt, so much so that she'd been reduced to a little girl in tears.

But, Brandi was standing right in front of her, still suspended in her action pose, doing what she could to keep Mary and Mark from exchanging blows. Her mouth wasn't open; she was panting like she'd run a race and her eyes were wild with fear about what would happen next, but she wasn't the one who had yelled.

The sudden silence was like a cloud of mist, fresh water they breathed into their lungs when they'd been sane enough to leave one another alone. And yet, the quiet lasted only long enough for Mary to realize where the scream had originated from.

"Stop fighting! Stop fighting! Please, stop fighting!"

It was Max.

Eyes screwed shut, crinkled behind his glasses, because he wouldn't have worn contacts to bed, sandy hair sticking up in back, two hands slapped over both ears, blocking out the sound like he wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out.

Mary was stunned, and pure surprise alone was enough to have her stepping away from Mark, taking in the scene as others must've viewed it. A public brawl, empty threats, flinging hands – like children. Only worse.

But, before she could really reflect on this, Max had gone off like a rocket; it was as though a valve had burst somewhere deep inside. She didn't know he could speak so loudly; she hadn't heard him so vociferous since his infancy.

"I _hate_ when you fight! You fight all the time! _Everybody_ fights _all_ the time! You're supposed to love each other! You're not supposed to act like this! Just stop it! I want it to stop! Make it stop!"

None of his pleas were aimed toward anyone in particular, for his ears were still covered and his eyes were still shut. But, the guilt that overtook Mary's heart was overwhelming. Her sweet Max – reserved, respectable, always right in the middle of so many clashes, and never once did he make a peep. He soldiered on, weathering the storms, letting everyone blow off steam, call names, and act like the world was coming to an end. He never flinched. Until today.

His face crumpled and big, ugly, wracking sobs erupted from his windpipe; the tears clouded his glasses and he had to remove his hands from his lobes to stop the flow. It seemed ridiculous to Mary that no one had moved to comfort him, and finally Peter came to his senses and stooped to his level.

"It's okay, buddy; its okay…"

He swept him off his feet and into his arms, even though he was really too tall to be held as such; his long legs dangled toward the floor. Peter snuggled him close anyway, making promises on behalf of everyone else, migrating away from the group, but not without dirty looks that his son could not see.

"No one's going to fight anymore; it's all right…"

"Where's Alice…?" Max blubbered into his father's shoulder. "Is Alice okay? Can I see her?"

"I don't know if you can see her, but I'm sure she's fine; we'll find out soon, okay?" he swore. "Don't worry."

Max's interpretation of events was getting to Mary. She knew she should apologize, both to Mark and to Jill, but her head was still so full of the insults and accusations that she found it hard to form the necessary words. The last person on earth she'd want to distress was her nephew, who never borrowed trouble, and so she would've been willing to suck it up and shake hands for that reason alone.

But, when Peter had led Max away, the congregation seemed to disperse as well. Mark pulled Jill aside and started whispering in her ear. Mary looked from Brandi to Marshall, wondering what planet her husband had visited during the fracas that had led him not to mediate, as he was so good at doing. Perhaps he, like Max, had said to hell with it and opted to back off, leaving the task to Brandi. Or, maybe he was still too consumed in thoughts of Alice to care much about anything else.

"If you aren't ashamed, you should be," Brandi determined into the rustlings, her blue eyes like that of a warrior; they'd really crossed a line by sending Max into a shambles. "He wants to be friends; he's Norah's father. Why do you have to jump down his throat?"

Muddled versions of how Mark was to blame swirled in Mary's brain, but she was too drained to express them to Brandi. She would in time; it wasn't entirely the inspector's fault. She also knew Brandi would cut her some slack as well, once the dust truly settled. Everyone knew Mary had reacted out of worry, that Alice's predicament had caused her to lash out unfairly. There was something to be said for that.

Marshall, meanwhile, was rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand, still mute, but still present. Mary would have to remember to thank him for the latter. He put up with a lot.

"Did you hear anything on Alice?" Brandi proposed when the older Shannon made no smart remark. "Does she have the flu, an infection…?"

"Appendicitis," Mary reported dully. "She's having surgery tomorrow – or today, whatever," making the same mistake twice. "But, she should be fine."

"Thank God…" Brandi breathed and, in a show of loyalty, put her hand on Mary's shoulder. "Where is she now?"

"Just resting; Marshall and I were gonna head back there soon…"

"What's appendicitis?" Robyn inquired from below, blinking her large, doe-like eyes into the faces of the adults. "Is that a disease?"

"It's an inflamed appendix," Brandi schooled her, surprising Mary with her dictionary definition. "Alice will have to have it taken out, but the appendix doesn't have a function, so she doesn't need it."

"Will she be okay?"

"Should be…" Mary sighed in recognition.

"Mom, can I go and see her?"

There was Norah, appearing as though from nowhere. The mother was aware she'd been there the entire time, hovering at the edges, wanting clues to her sister's condition, but unable to be heard over all the arguing. Her orbs were as big as Robyn's, but lighter and more begging. No whining had ensued yet, but Mary had a hunch that if she was denied admittance, they might have another squabble on their hands.

Still, the inspector wanted to say no. The inkling of why she was mad at Norah was still ruminating somewhere in her stomach, even if she couldn't summon the energy to have it out with her right now. Being the gatekeeper wasn't a fun job, and it wasn't a responsibility Mary wanted to be entrusted with. So often, she could count on Marshall to handle these matters, but if he was still recovering from his shock, she wasn't going to disturb him with this.

"Bug, she's tired. Why don't you wait until…?"

"I won't stay long," Norah bargained. "Just a few minutes. Please?"

It didn't compute with Mary why a girl who normally couldn't stand the sight of her baby sister was suddenly longing to lay eyes on her, and the sooner the better. She was too spent and strung out to analyze the situation. It would be faster and less painful to agree.

"Fine, go ahead…" she waved an errant hand in the direction of the hallway. "Just you," shutting Robyn out might be harsh, but Alice could probably only handle so much. "And, it'll be quick; she needs to get some sleep. Marshall and I will be there in a minute."

"Okay…"

"She's in room B17…"

"I'll find it…"

Slapping on old flip flops she had probably shoved on in a confused scrabble out of Mark's house, Norah was off, never once looking back to give anyone the chance to tell her to return.

On some level, if her brain had been working correctly, Mary would've debated the possibilities of why her teenager was so desperate to get to Alice. Was it so she could mock her status of being bedridden? Or was it, just maybe, to be a show of support? To prove she was not as ghastly as her manic behavior would lead everyone to believe?

Mary didn't care right now. It freed the room of at least one person, and the more she could shoo away, the better.

XXX

 **A/N: Like I said, I think it's time for the drama to die down, and it does. Thanks to everyone still reading and reviewing!**


	36. Chapter 36

**A/N: I had forgotten how long the chapters are in this part of the story…**

XXX

"Everybody's here, you know."

"Everybody?"

"Yep. Everybody."

"Who?"

"Your dad – my dad. Jill. Mom. Brandi. Peter and Robyn and Max too."

"Not Joanna?"

"Seriously, how many people do you need? Like you're not popular enough already?"

The note in Norah's voice was jokey, not laced with its typical disdain when she spoke about just how many individuals put their lives on hold for Alice, or so it seemed to her. Given the small smile her little sister fed her, she understood the tone for what it was.

Norah didn't have a lot of experience with hospitals, and they didn't make her as uncomfortable as they appeared to make so many others. The only time she could ever remember being in one was after Alice had been born; she'd come with Brandi after school; it had been the day before Thanksgiving. She'd been a little frightened by the IV line in her mother's arm, it was true, but other than that she hadn't found the place particularly formidable.

Now, taking in the surroundings around Alice's bed, she saw the aforementioned IV pole, the needle affixed firmly to the younger girl's wrist. The space wasn't very well lit; it was shadowy everywhere except around the bed. All the light came from a set of bulbs in the wall above the mattress and was controlled by a switch. It was pitch dark outside the tiny window with white net curtains, but every so often flashes of red and blue would hit the panes and bathe them in whirling Technicolor, if only briefly.

Alice wore a loose gown printed with orange tigers; it had an aqua green collar, which Norah found to be an odd color combination. Her brunette curls had been released of a ponytail and they hung, matted and coiled, around her shoulders. The virtual spotlight they were ensconced in highlighted the few faint freckles sprinkled across her nose. She looked pale, but not at death's door. Norah took comfort in that.

"What are they doing?" Alice asked, referring to everyone that had showed up in the middle of the night on her behalf.

Norah snorted from where she sat at the end of the bed, mindful not to put pressure on her sister's legs where they were stretched out.

"Fighting."

"About what?"

"I don't know…" Norah shrugged, not having really listened to the specifics. "Mom got really pissed because she told dad not to come and he didn't listen. Plus, he brought Jill. That made her mad too."

Instead of fixating on why it was that no one could stand Jill when she saw nothing wrong with her, Alice deviated to something different. She was enjoying Norah's unusually amicable company too much to risk rocking the boat.

"Does it bother you when mom and Mark fight?"

Alice had never asked her this before. Indeed, no one had really asked her how she felt about the turmoil that raged as of late, most of it created by the teenager herself. It was nice to be asked.

"Yeah, kind of…" the seventh grader hunched her shoulders and played with a stray thread on her giant shirt. "It would be better if they got along, but they never have. Sometimes, they're okay to each other, but dad always tries too hard and mom doesn't want to give him a chance."

"They used to kind of be friends, didn't they?" the younger recalled vaguely. "A long time ago?"

"I guess so," Norah admitted. "But, that was before dad started going out with Jill." She sighed morosely, but not theatrically. "You're lucky, Alice. Mom and Marshall never argue."

"They did before we came here," she shared at once, bizarrely eager to have something in common with her big sister, even if it was something neither one of them would wish on the other. "They were screaming at each other."

"Before you came to the hospital, you mean?"

"Yeah," Alice confirmed, suddenly very chatty. "Daddy was acting really weird. He was running all over the place and his eyes were all big in his face. Mommy shouted at him because she didn't want to come to the hospital."

"For real?"

"Mmm hmm…" she hummed. "But, I guess its good we did. My belly hurt so bad."

"Does it hurt now?"

"A little."

Norah thought about that for a moment, flip-flopping on whether she should be nice enough to offer to get Alice something – a drink, a nurse, an extra pillow. But, she seemed okay, and acting too mushy would only give her false ideas. She wanted to be the mature one, the way her mother was always telling her she should be. A peculiar sensation had struck her when she'd wheedled it out of Mark that Alice was sick and had gone to the emergency room. She'd been worried, yes, especially given the way they had left things. But, more than that, she wanted to provide a harbor for her little sister – someone to hang onto, a sounding board. Like Mary had done for Brandi for so many years.

But, even wishing she could be the brave one, she didn't want to overdo it. They weren't best buddies, and Alice would probably just grow suspicious if Norah started fluffing her sheets and showering her with treasures from the crummy gift shop downstairs.

"Do all mommies and daddies get mad at each other?" the ailing one questioned when the silence had gone on long enough, probably mulling over the tiff Mary and Marshall had-had hours earlier and how rare it had been.

"Most of them, I think," Norah offered, chewing absently on her thumbnail. "I guess everybody that gets married does."

"Stan and Lia don't," Alice pointed out.

"I bet they do; we just don't see them."

"Mark and Jill don't."

"Yeah, well, they're not married yet, are they?" Norah reminded her with a devious smirk.

"Do you wanna get married someday?"

In typical teenager fashion, the blonde didn't even think; she blurted out the first thought that came into her head. Not only that, she made an appropriate face to go along, wrinkling her nose and sticking her tongue out, indicating complete and utter disgust.

"Are you kidding?" she made a gagging noise just to make sure her opinion could not be misconstrued. "Boys are gross."

"Yeah, boys _are_ gross!" Alice echoed excitedly, taking no offense from the other's repulsion of the opposite sex. "Well, except there's this one…"

"Oh, dear me, Alice…" Norah groaned.

"Only one!" she didn't want to lose her ground with her big sister; staying on the same plane was essential; it meant they were in sync now when they hadn't been in ages. "He's in my class! His name is Shawn…"

"You haven't been kissing him, have you?"

"Ewwwww!" a squeal, spluttering dramatically. "That's disgusting! And, anyway, I'd get in _so_ much trouble if I kissed him!" she added. "But, he _is_ kind of…a little bit cute…"

Norah played along with the first grade romance, mostly so she could have blackmail material later, but she couldn't deny it was funny to think about her baby sister interested in any male.

"Cute is not enough, Alice," she said sagely, as if she had the first clue about such things. "Tell me he's got something going for him other than his looks."

"He runs really fast!" she shared exuberantly. "He's the fastest boy in the whole first grade! But, he never brags about it; he's kind of shy. That's why I like him…"

"Because he lets you tell him what to do?"

"Well, yeah…"

"Sounds like a match made in heaven."

The sarcasm was evident, but she made sure to smile after the fact, which caused Alice to grin as well. Norah figured it made her feel grown up, more like a middle schooler or a big girl, to even be thinking about boys. Dimly, she wondered what Mary would say if she could hear them. Part of her knew. She'd shut them down or pretend not to know of their feelings at all – ignorance is bliss, after all. Marshall would tease them just enough to make their cheeks turn pink and then he would poke a finger in their sides and let it go.

Norah felt in tune with both reactions, but it was therapeutic to be able to talk about something silly and girlish without having to concern herself with what her parents would think. She didn't have any friends to discuss relationships with, and Robyn could be a dangerous confidante. A six-year-old wasn't her first choice, but it was better than nothing.

"Well, maybe you'll get hitched down the road, but I won't," vocalizing how she was soured on weddings, leaning her weight onto one hand at the end of the bed. "Guys are more trouble than they're worth. Trust me."

"There aren't any cute ones in middle school?" Alice looked faintly disappointed by future prospects being cut off.

"Not in the seventh grade. Not in the sixth or eighth grade either," she revealed. "But…"

Here, hesitation took over. Alice, ill or not, was still Alice; she could still have a big mouth and use it at the most inopportune times. An appendix teetering on the edge of bursting did not change this. In a few days, she could be back to her old squirrely self, and would do anything to get Norah's goat.

But, the anticipatory look in her eyes was one that the thirteen-year-old had never really cared to evaluate before. So wrapped up in her own drama, she'd never opened her eyes to the yearning, the feeling of belonging and stimulation that would occur if she would share a tiny tidbit of life before high school. It was a magical, mysterious world where Alice did not fit. Norah was her only link, minus Robyn. They were how she connected, and it was their thoughts that influenced whether she looked to the future with thrill or consternation.

"If I tell you this, you can't tell anybody else, you hear?"

"I promise!"

"I mean it. Swear?"

"Swear!" she might've been bouncing up and down, if not for her sensitive stomach. "To hell!"

Norah shot her an exasperated glance, "Don't go around talking like that."

"You do."

"I don't care if I do; you shouldn't."

"Are you gonna tell me, or not?"

She had been stalling, just the way that Mary did when she didn't want to face facts. Norah hated it when she wanted to coax something out of her mother. She supposed it was ironic that she was doing it to Alice now.

Sighing loudly and flapping her lips together so that they made a thespian horse-like neigh, she shook her head laboriously and just hoped no one was listening at the door.

"I have this teacher…" she started in a low, cagey way, inching a little closer to the head of the bed as she did so. "It's my last class of the day. His name is Mr. Harrington. He teaches social studies."

"So, what?" Alice was nonplussed.

" _So…_ " Norah emphasized, rolling her eyes because she knew the first grader was really too young to understand. "He's _really_ smart. He reads aloud from the textbook, and his voice is kind of slow; he stretches out the words so that they last twice as long…" it was mortifying, how dreamy she sounded, but she didn't stop there. "And, he is _so_ adorable; he wears a shirt and tie every day…"

But, at this point, Alice – six years old or not – had figured out where this was going. Her horror might've been frankly hilarious if Norah had been paying much attention, but she was caught up in her scholarly fantasy. But, if anyone was going to shake her from it, it was most certainly going to be her obnoxious little sister.

"You're in love with a _teacher?!_ " she yelped so loudly that patients several doors down probably would've been able to hear her. Mouth still hanging slack, "That is so icky! That's like being in love with someone who's a daddy!"

"It is not!" Norah protested, returning to reality as though she'd been conked on the head. "And, I'm not _in love_ with him!" it was only a crush, and the only class where the teacher didn't despise her; she would take what she could get. "It's not like he's old! He told us; he just finished college, so he's only, like, twenty-five…"

"That's still creepy!" Alice insisted steadfastly. "I'm gonna tell mommy; she'll think…"

"You're not telling her anything!" Norah reminded her seriously. "You promised you wouldn't!"

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't…"

"Alice!"

The little girl giggled mirthlessly, "Just kidding…"

But, her chuckles were short-lived, because the quavering in her abdominal region caused her to curl up into a ball and clutch her midsection, the laughs turning to wheezes and gasps. It was as though the knob had been turned on a faucet; the sounds of pure happiness vanished and were replaced immediately with moans and whimpers. At first, it seemed Alice was trying her hardest not to start crying, but panic at the pain coming back sent the tears into full force.

"What's the matter?" Norah put forward, surprising even herself at how steady her voice was; she didn't move; she just solicited information.

"My tummy feels bad again…" Alice divulged between squeaks, rolling over onto her side, knees hunched to her chest. "It hurts…it hurts; I want it to stop hurting…"

Now Norah was on her feet, "Do you want me to get mom?"

No response, just wetness soaking into the pristine white pillow. Rather than pump her for a comeback, the older girl motored around the side of the bed and knelt in front of her face so they were eye to eye – brown to blue. Mark's to Marshall's. Goofy to studious. Sweet to sensitive. Carefree to careworn. And switching roles on any given day.

"You should breathe…" Norah whispered, still without her voice climbing one iota. "Like when you're at the doctor and they put their stethoscope on your chest. Breathe in…"

Extraordinarily, Alice did what she said; even it was rattled and wobbly.

"Yeah, like that. Now, let it out…"

"Will that make it feel better?" she peeped fearfully.

"Yeah, definitely. It only started up again because you were laughing; it'll be over soon."

"You promise?"

"I wouldn't lie to you."

Meanwhile, in the twisting and turning corridor outside of Alice's private quarters, Mary and Marshall had managed to disentangle themselves from all the external parties to check up on their daughter. Marshall still felt like he was living outside himself, as though everything around him was happening in a movie and he was just a mesmerized spectator. He couldn't explain where the stupor came from, but it had been strong enough to keep him from interfering in the face-off. All in all, he was coming to a bit better; Mary's long and purposeful stride beside him was slowly pulling him back into the present.

"I'm not sure I really want to know what's going on back here…" the woman babbled hurriedly, passing carts filled with blankets and pillows, bulletin boards bearing crayoned drawings. "What possessed me to let Norah come, I have no idea…"

"I'm sure they're fine…" Marshall replied dully, mostly because he knew he was supposed to give a response.

"I don't know…" she predicted darkly. "Norah isn't known for taking a day off on abusing everyone, no matter what the circumstances…"

"Hard to say…" talking was helping; it was making him feel more alert and less bemused. "But, she seemed pretty impatient to see her; that doesn't necessarily indicate anything foreboding."

"She's probably reading Alice the riot act right now because her exploding appendix means she won't get enough sleep tonight."

It was true that Marshall had been just as aggravated with Norah as his wife had in the hours before all hell had broken loose. The way she had purposely tried to injure her little sister's feelings by trivializing their relationship, no matter how rocky, had been extremely below the belt. But, things were different now, and he liked to think that Norah could put her hostility aside to be, if not a nurturing sister, than at least a friend.

And, in any case, when more awareness filtered into Marshall's brain, he recalled more of Mary's boxing match with Mark. He might've still been at the bottom of the well, decaying over Alice's state of being, but a few things had gotten through.

"Leaping to negative conclusions will not help anything," he informed Mary solidly, liking how much more assertive his voice sounded. "Max is right, you know. We shouldn't be ripping each other to shreds."

"I already got that speech from Brandi," Mary grumbled moodily.

"I don't just mean tonight," Marshall insisted, glad they were still moving so that Mary could not stop and bore into him with a glare. "There has been entirely too much wrestling going on lately…"

"I can only _hope_ you mean that in a symbolic sense…" the blonde grumped. "Because, picturing anyone in colored, stretchy underwear and you with hair long enough to tie into a ponytail is frightening on so many levels."

"Don't evade," his newfound forcefulness was taking him to a higher level of confrontation. "And, do me the courtesy of listening to what I'm saying. Norah has been getting the brunt of our aggressions for I don't know how long because she likes to stir the pot, but she's not the only one. You want to talk about being a role model, well…"

"Well, what?" Mary snapped as they turned a corner, room B17 in sight at the far end.

"Well, she is far from the single perpetrator," he concluded. "Alice argues with you, you argue with Mark, Brandi argues with Robyn, Robyn argues with Peter; even the way you and I talk to each other could stand some reform."

"There's nothing wrong with the way we talk to each other…"

"Not for us, because we're used to it; it's how we operate," he was referring to the constant jabs and uppercuts they took on one another's quirks and eccentricities; it was a rhythm they had been in for upwards of twenty years. "But, you can't be sure that doesn't carry over when those who are more impressionable are listening in," he meant Norah and Alice. "Don't you think we're kind of showing them that it's okay to make fun of each other so long as they don't really mean it?"

"If you think I'm going to start kissing your feet and batting my eyelashes and _not_ making comments about the way you use three different combs _and_ a brush to style your hair in the morning, then you have another thing coming…"

"I don't mean that; I just mean…"

"Look…"

Finally, Mary twirled around to face him, because they had reached the entrance to Alice's room at last. Before opening the door, she wanted him to get a few things straight. She respected his opinion; she always had, she always would. But, there was a time and a place, and she didn't have the stamina to overhaul her life right now.

"Marshall, I'm tired…" she gave a sardonic laugh and shook her head. "I'm beat. And, I know that what I just put Mark through wasn't fair – to him, to Jill, to Max, to everyone. I'm not the most flattering person when I'm worried."

"Good thing I love you anyway."

"Yeah…" she appreciated his kindness. "Yeah, good thing, because who the hell else would?"

"Mmm, I can think of a few…"

"Well, hold that thought," she requested. "Because, right now, I need to make sure Norah hasn't taken an extra punch to Alice's gut since they're gonna do surgery anyway and she couldn't waste the opportunity."

Without waiting for Marshall to stomp all over her pessimism here as well, she turned her back on him and rotated the knob on the door, although she could see a sliver of what was going on inside through a long skinny window just the height of her eyes. She spotted Norah on the end of the bed, perched on her knees, but could discern nothing of Alice, whose form was obscured by an alove's inner wall just inside the door.

It was safe to assume neither one of them had heard the swing of the hinges, because when Mary stepped inside, Marshall right on her heels, she could hear them talking as though no one were listening in. It was shameless to eavesdrop – something Brandi would do – but she couldn't stop herself. Shrinking behind the handy wall, home to a sink and counter, she hid herself to listen to just a few phrases. It wasn't often she got to find out what the girls said when she was not around.

"I'm not making it up…" that was Norah.

"I think you are. You're just saying it so I'll laugh and hurt myself again."

"Way to have faith, Alice!" the older snickered. "I'm not evil, you know; I wouldn't do that."

"Uh-huh…"

"Okay, so maybe I would," Norah admitted. "But, only if it wasn't gonna hurt you _that_ bad. I'm not trying to kill you or anything…"

"I still think you're lying."

"Look, you can ask mom when she comes back! She'll tell you!"

"Fine, maybe I will. But, mommy doesn't know how to cut hair, so there is no way she would cut Max's."

Good God. That had been eons ago. Mary remembered it perfectly, but she was surprised that Norah did; she'd been so little. Maybe the reasons Alice was giving were the reasons it had stuck in her brain – because it was so out of character for the inspector; so spontaneous.

"Look, you saw how it looked in that video the other night, right?" Norah reminded her. "He couldn't even see; it was hanging in his eyes and he was like some rock star on television. Mom _hated_ it…"

"But, who told her to cut it?"

"I did," there was a note of pride there. "And, I convinced her, and she trimmed it; it looked _way_ better. She really thought she was going to cut too much and then Max would go bald…"

"Like Stan?"

"Yeah…" Norah chortled. "Can you picture Max in a suit and tie like his?"

Alice giggled too, but tentatively, like she was holding back, "If he was gonna be like Stan, he'd have to get a girl like Lia. They could _dance_ together…"

"No way does Max know how to dance."

"Lia could teach him."

"Or mom."

If Mary's ears weren't perked before, they certainly were now. Since when did Norah think she was a waltzing expert, especially considering all the women in her life that actually were light on their feet? Jinx was just the beginning; there was the aforementioned Lia, and Robyn, despite her hyperactive early days, had grown into quite the twirler. The last person anyone would go to for such knowledge was Mary.

Alice, it seemed, felt the same as her mother; her voice indicated as much from where Mary was still huddled in the shadows.

"Mommy doesn't like to dance. Does she even know how?"

This miffed the woman only slightly, as she was not entirely incompetent in such an area. Norah apparently was reading her mind.

"Sure she knows how. She had Jinx for a mom, didn't she?"

"But, Jinx always said she never liked ballet or anything like that. She thought it was too girly."

"Well, maybe," Mary could picture her older daughter shrugging. "But, that doesn't mean she can't do it if she really wants to. I've seen her and Marshall dance before."

Whatever Alice thought about this, the snooping one didn't really listen to. She was too busy wracking her brains trying to figure out any time in recent memory when Norah would've witnessed her sashaying around with her husband like their living room – or anywhere else, for that matter – was a talent competition. She was always so careful to hide any extroverted behavior she might allow to leak out a whim, always prodded along by Marshall's coaching. He was the one who always had her making a fool of herself, and she found herself hoping that Norah was going to enlighten her baby sister. She could use a memory boost.

"When?" the smaller girl proposed, granting Mary's silent wish.

"It was a long time ago," Norah began, although not with the air that she would turn this into an elongated story. "I was like, five, maybe. They'd just told me about you, actually."

"What about me?"

"That you were going to be born – that mom was pregnant. They thought I was in bed; Marshall had this plinky-plunky, schmaltzy piano music on… 

It was hard for Mary to suppress a smile at just how like her-her daughter sounded, this time for good instead of bad.

"It was playing out of the TV speakers. I was listening from the bathroom door; mom was all stressed out and he thought the music would relax her."

"Why was she stressed out?"

There was a tiny hint of neediness in Alice's voice, as if she couldn't envision anyone being the least bit upset when she was set to make her arrival, however many months in the future.

"I guess because I wasn't happy enough about you," Norah said it slowly, no emotion detectable in her tone; it was simple fact. "I mean, I wasn't upset, but I didn't think of babies as being all that exciting. I did wonder if you would be, like, three feet long when you were born because Marshall is so tall."

"Really?" the little one giggled; it was a noise that brought such joy to Mary's heart.

"Yeah, and I told mom that, and I think it scared her because it was such a dumb question. But, I really didn't know."

"That's silly."

"Yeah, well, I was a little kid," Norah admitted. "I also thought you might talk the second you came out – I knew you'd be smart because Marshall is about as close to a genius that you can get."

Here, the inspector relayed a timid, but touched, glance to the man at her shoulder. He wasn't welling up, but the evidence as to how moved he was shimmered in his sky blue eyes. But, the teenager wasn't the only one handing out accolades.

"Mommy is smart too."

This, from the world's leading daddy's girl.

"Duh," Norah scoffed, although not entirely unkindly. "Of course mom is smart. She's a US Marshal. She kicks the bad guys on their ass every day of the week."

"Not anymore."

"No, but she used to," the older reassured her. "And, I'm not kidding, by the way," getting back on track. "She and Marshall did dance that night. Mom was upset about me, but she shouldn't have been; I was really curious to see what you'd be like even if I didn't act like it. Marshall must've known it, though, because he kissed her a lot and made her get off the couch, and he swayed back and forth with her. They were both in pajamas."

Alice snickered again, "Was mommy fat?"

"A little. Not really."

"Did the dance make her feel better?"

"Yeah, I think so. I liked watching them…"

For a moment, the girls were quiet, and even on this side of the wall, she could imagine that Norah was picturing the scene in her mind's eye all over again. She knew, because she was envisioning it as well. Until Norah had brought it up, she'd entirely forgotten about that evening, although she couldn't see how; any kind of impulsiveness and affection on her part was rare and to be noted. But, misplaced or not, the images were now rushing back as though it had happened yesterday.

She had, indeed, been fretting over Norah's reaction to having a younger sibling. She'd been nonplussed – not thrilled, not dismayed, not shocked. Nothing. She'd shrugged and asked a few questions, like when the baby would be born and if it's kicking hurt Mary. She'd been such a little caretaker in those days, and yet her deadpan attitude had been unnerving. Apparently, Mary had-had no reason to worry, even in spite of the cat fights the two sisters had these days.

And, Marshall had erased her fears with a few well-chosen words and literally swept her off her feet. For once, she had let him; she'd been tired and nauseous and uncertain about what lay ahead. The feel of his hands on her back, his breath in her ear, the stubble on his chin tickling her cheek, was the perfect recipe to washing her troubles away.

"Did they ever know you were there?" Alice was suddenly asking, causing Mary to tune back in.

"Nah. It was better that way; they didn't try to hide anything."

"What else did daddy do?" the brunette was caught up in the fantasy of the whole thing, like it had come straight from a story book.

"You know – the things he always does when mom's in a mood," the thirteen-year-old tried to downplay it. "Acted like a smart ass; she loves that."

Mary distinctly heard Marshall chuckle softly behind her.

"Told her he loved her – that he always would. And then knew enough to keep his mouth shut."

"If you could be with someone like daddy, would you get married?"

This was out of left field, and Mary had to be careful not to lose her balance from where she was still huddled next to the sink. Since when did her two daughters discuss weddings? She knew the situation with Jill probably had it on both their minds, but first and seventh graders didn't have a lot in common as far as the opposite sex. One was afraid of cooties and the other found the idea of kissing a boy as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

"I don't know…" Norah whispered eventually, but she sounded deep in thought. "I guess. Maybe. I'd still be afraid that I would end up divorced like mom and dad."

This brought chills to the mother's spine, but they were quickly warmed by what came next.

"But, you're brave," Alice said, as though she needed reminding. "You don't get scared. Not like me."

"Yeah, but I don't think being brave is really about _not_ being scared…"

Marshall's hand wrapped around her waist and squeezed. By touch and not by sight, Mary found his hand in her curve and threaded her fingers through it.

"It _is_ about being scared. And then doing it anyway."

XXX

 **A/N: Of course I don't want to perpetuate the notion that everything is going to change overnight, but I am well practiced in taking creative license.**


	37. Chapter 37

**A/N: It makes me so happy that I inspired some emotion in someone – thanks, jekkah!**

XXX

The dawn approached slowly, even once the waters calmed and the tide had transitioned to a lull. It seemed to Mary that the sun was never going to come up; it would be forever hidden beneath the mountains on the far off horizon – a perpetual nighttime, a supernatural phenomenon for all to witness. She'd suffered through longer nights before, but this one had such an endless quality that not even the evening she had spent chained to a post had held. Perhaps that was because she hadn't been able to see outside then, no sense of where today ended and tomorrow began – indeed, if there would be a tomorrow at all. It was almost more daunting knowing tomorrow was going to arrive and that you couldn't stop it no matter how long the wait.

After wheedling Alice into a fitful sleep that was punctuated by starts from a nurse entering or a particularly loud beep of a monitor, Marshall persuaded one of the doctors to give his daughter something to help her rest. In spite of the physician's protests that she would get sleep soon – like, when she was under anesthesia – eventually he caved. It wasn't strong, but it was enough to keep her under on a more elongated basis; now, she would only wake when a parent whispered in her ear.

Around six thirty, still two and a half hours from surgery at the earliest, both Mary and Marshall permitted themselves a return to the waiting room. The space had cleared out; Mark and Jill had taken Norah back to their place, with likewise being done by Brandi and Peter and their kids. Though Mary had longed for the quiet before, now it was almost too silent; the emptiness settled in her bones and she felt oddly lonely.

But, isolation did not plague her for long. In spite of her worries over the operation as well as Alice snoozing by herself, exhaustion caught up with her. She wasn't sure if she fell asleep before or after Marshall, but he was dozing on the stiff couch just as she began to shut her eyes in the single chair, head lolling unpleasantly onto the armrest. For once, she was glad that practicality took her over; much as she wanted to stay up and be alert for any changes on Alice's condition, this was a fight she couldn't win. If her daughter was going to get some sleep, she might as well too.

It was hard to say at what hour she came to, but there were only three things she noticed as her vision came into focus, switching from blurry to clear as she tried to ascertain what had woken her and why. First, she realized that the sun was not, in fact, going to stay sheltered forever. It was slowly peeking its pinky-and-orange face behind the peaks of the Sandias outside a window at the far end of the room. It cast the area in a warm, rosy hue, making Mary feel as though she'd woken up in a fantasy rather than an all-too-authentic reality.

Second, she saw that Marshall was still zonked across from her. How, she wasn't sure, because the sofa was hard as a rock and he had no pillow or blanket, but that didn't stop him from getting as many winks as he could. His hands were folded under his head like a little boy's, long legs protruding over the end of the couch. Lastly, the reason she was now facing the world instead of remaining caught in a dream was standing right in front of her – Brandi, properly dressed but less made-up than usual, carrying a plastic sack in one hand and Mary's worn brown tote in the other.

"Mmm…" the older sister hummed, rubbing one eye with her index finger and elbowing up. Squinting upward, "It's you…"

"Nice greeting," Brandi tested a joke, counting on Mary to be a little more tolerant now that she'd had some sleep. "And, yes, it's me. I brought you some clothes…" she held up the grocery sack.

"Thanks…" Mary rasped throatily, swinging her legs over the end of the sofa and taking the first of the bags. "I guess I'll have to find somewhere to change…"

"There's a bathroom around the corner," the younger told her, gesturing over her shoulder. "I think there's one in Alice's room too."

"I'll just use the communal one," Mary had no idea where she'd come up with such a flowery word when her head was hardly screwed on straight, but it must've been the Marshall in her. "Did you bring anything for Marshall?" she questioned, remembering once she'd thought of her husband.

"Yeah; there's a pair of jeans and a T-shirt in there," Brandi directed. "Sorry, I forgot to grab a jacket."

"I think he brought one…" the other glanced around, unable to recall exactly. "Maybe he left it with Alice. I don't know…"

"I can go back if you think of anything else you want," Brandi offered. "I saw your purse in your room, so I took it, but I didn't put anything in it expect your glasses. They were on the table by your bed."

"It's not a purse," Mary griped innocently. "But, thanks. It was pretty sad last night when I was trying to read all the admission and insurance forms; it's like I'm trying to look through water. Marshall had to fill in most of them for me."

"I didn't see the case though, so I hope I didn't break them or anything, just throwing them in there."

"I guess we'll find out."

"Have you heard anything new on Alice?" Brandi inquired, thinking it was safe to take a seat, which she did on the coffee table in front of her sister. "Is she just back in her room?"

"Hopefully sleeping," the inspector noted. "And, everything is status quo as far as I know. Losing her appendix at nine, barring emergencies that come in."

"Have they said how long she'll be here after the surgery? A couple days?"

"They're thinking Saturday, unless she had a complication or something," Mary shared, not even liking to entertain the notion. And then, hoping she didn't sound too stupid, but deciding it was only Brandi and that incoherent was subjective with her around, "What is today?"

"Thursday," the blonder supplied without teasing. "A school day…" she chuckled sadly, as if having school on anyone's radar was nothing short of foolish. "Peter said we should go ahead and send the kids, but I don't know…"

"It'll be better for them to keep busy," Mary decided, taking out the shirt her sister had brought for her and shaking out the wrinkles. "Of course it'll be a bitch for them to try to stay awake."

"Well, that's what I thought…"

"Still," the older interrupted, thinking the topic wasn't up for debate as far as Norah was concerned. "All this conference business going on – it doesn't pay to make mistakes or play hooky."

Why she was even thinking about such a thing right now was beyond her, and she wanted to hit herself for bringing it up. What did Norah's sub-par performance in the classroom matter when they had Alice mere hours away from having her stomach sliced open? If anything, this eventuality should be encouraging the teenager to get her shit together because there were far more important things to consider.

But, when Mary remembered listening to the two sisters, normally so hateful toward one another, swap stories and giggle, her heart softened a little. It was relieving to know that, whatever Norah's problems, when push came to shove she was not the tyrant she had been acting like as of late. When Alice had been in danger, she had come to play – stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park. It had been a long time since Mary had not heard a disparaging comment come out of her mouth when Alice was in the vicinity, and so she should be thanking her lucky stars that such a tender moment had come to pass between the two.

"I don't think one day off would've had the truant officer coming to call," Brandi hypothesized, seemingly blind to Mary's deeper thoughts. "But, whatever. Peter's probably getting Robyn and Max up right now," checking her watch. "It's kind of weird not being there…"

For Brandi, it would be strange, Mary reflected. But, for the latter, she was used to being away when her child emerged from the covers to start the day anew. Such was the problem with a divided household – a divided household, it seemed, that had caused Norah to bypass the idea of marriage almost completely.

But, thinking about either of Brandi's children made her recall her blow up from earlier and the way one of them had reacted. The younger Shannon's segue was as good as any other.

"Listen…" the Marshal fumbled inexpertly at first, not the best at choking out apologies even when she meant them. "Speaking of the kids…" a pathetic clear of her throat, buying herself some time. "I hope that Max was okay after you took him home. I'm…" Swallowing and taking a deep breath, as though she was signing her life away, "I'm…sorry that I upset him. I didn't mean to. A shitty excuse, I know, but I wasn't thinking about him."

"You were thinking about yourself," Brandi said bluntly, which at first surprised her because she didn't think the younger should be fishing for an argument, given the circumstances.

But, when she digested Brandi's words a little more thoroughly, she realized they had not been uttered with disregard or contempt, but with truth. Yes, Mary had been thinking about herself – her dilemma, her fear, her family; that was the way it should've been, though it shouldn't have been at Max's expense.

"Well…it wasn't _all_ about me…" Mary stammered as a weak defense. "And, I wasn't mad at you guys, not really. I was pissed at Mark. But, when am I not pissed at Mark these days?"

"You think you can get over it?"

This seemed a strange response and Mary quirked an eyebrow to show her confusion. It was too early and her brain was too fried to put together any mixed messages from Brandi.

"Why would you ask me that?"

Peter's wife didn't waste time, "Because he's here."

In spite of her fatigue, Mary could still widen her eyes, "He's _here?_ "

"Yeah. Parking my car."

"What the hell?!" she hissed, doing her best not to wake Marshall, but it wasn't easy; she registered, however, that even as she fumed that her anger didn't have the same spark as it had in the wee hours of the morning. "Why would you let him come back here when you saw how upset I got?"

"Because he wanted to, and it isn't my job to tell him no…"

"So, I suppose I'll have to take care of that?"

"Mary…"

"We are not going to be comrades in arms just because he's Norah's father!"

"Will you hush?" it was a great irony that Brandi was the one schooling her in keeping her hysteria under control. With a well-timed glance over her shoulder, she elaborated, "You're going to wake Marshall."

There was no denying the truth of this matter, and so Mary gave her a filthy look, but closed her mouth. It was all she could do not to explode again, but the same kind of fight didn't live in her right now. Still, the thought of going head-to-head with Mark again was draining enough on its own. What the pair of them had been thinking, she couldn't imagine.

"Why does he want to be here so badly anyway?" the inspector requested quietly. "Can't he take a hint?"

Brandi ignored the second portion, choosing instead to focus on the first, "He _likes_ you. Beats me as to why, but he does." And, before Mary could pounce on the insult, "And, he has so much going for him right now – he should be able to celebrate. But, he doesn't have any support."

"I'm supposed to give him support when my kid is twisting and writhing in pain because they're sticking needles in her arm?"

" _No…_ " Brandi emphasized pointedly through somewhat clenched teeth. "But, maybe he thinks if _he_ supports _you_ , you'll return the favor one day."

It was such decent thing to do, if it was the truth. So decent, in fact, that Mary couldn't picture herself doing the same thing. Was Mark really putting himself in the line of fire at every turn in hopes of scrabbling together an acquaintance – and in Mary, of all people? They'd become close enough over the years, what with Norah to bond them, but she really didn't know how she would describe her ex to someone if they were to ask.

On a whim, she might say they were friends, but more likely she would say he was her child's dad and leave it at that – no thrills, no frills, just the facts, ma'am. Why would he make such an effort when she refused to do the same? Brandi's explanation certainly seemed like a good one.

"Mary, he is a good guy…" the littler insisted, head cocked to one side, her blue eyes pleading. "And he loves you. He loves Norah. He even loves Alice, which is why he must've showed up here tonight…"

"He's made things pretty damn difficult lately," Mary hung onto her thread, gripping tightly for as long as she could.

"Do you really expect him not to move on with his life?" it was like she was Mark himself talking to Norah about how the days trundled on; changes were to be anticipated. "Don't you want him to be happy?"

"I want Norah to be happy."

Brandi sighed, "We all do. But, I think you two being happy – not just separately, but with each other – would go a long way toward achieving that."

It was hard to think of anything to say to this that she hadn't already uttered, so she settled for looking moody, all the while wondering if she could escape to the bathroom to change and not come out until Mark gave up and went home. But, as Marshall would say, you couldn't avoid forever, and Mary knew as well as anyone that having things continue the way they were created a bad situation for everyone.

"I'll talk to him, since I obviously can't get rid of him, but I'm not promising anything," she sanctioned with a pointed finger. "I _do_ have something more significant on my mind. Forgive me if some sort of exoneration of Mark is not my first priority," slipping in some sarcasm, just for good measure.

Luckily, Brandi smirked and stood up, knowing that this was the best she could expect from Mary.

"I don't know what's keeping him, but he should be up soon…"

"I'm not going to lie in wait for him. Do you think I have plans to orchestrate some sit-down discussion?"

"No," Brandi stated. "You're the one who said you're just gonna talk, which I'm sure he'd prefer to having his head blown off the second he walks through the door."

Mary narrowed her eyebrows, "Don't push it." And then, "Make yourself useful, why don't you? They have coffee around here somewhere?"

"Probably…" she younger Shannon looked over her shoulder, as though hoping to see a sign pointing her in the right direction. "You want me to go get you some?"

"Really quick on the uptake, aren't you?"

As she backed up, nearly tripping over the end of the couch on the way, she waggled her fingers as though all of this was a fun little game, irking Mary further, but she said nothing.

"I'll get you something to eat too."

"Just go."

Brandi knew an exit cue when she heard one, even if she didn't always abide by the command. This time, however, she did, although not without that silly little smirk on her face. Maybe it was the idea of Mary turning back into her old, cantankerous self that was causing her such joy, because it surely couldn't be for any other reason. Besides, irritable and cynical was one thing – cruel was another, something Mary would have to be careful not to tote out when Mark finally strolled onto the floor.

To pass the time and not look like she was on pins and needles waiting for his arrival, she took up the sack Brandi had brought for her and ambled along to the bathroom to put something clean on. She hoped Marshall wouldn't come to in the process and wonder what had become of her. It was highly likely he would think something was wrong with Alice if he woke up to an empty waiting room, and so she tried to be quick, even if that meant facing Mark sooner.

Brandi had brought her an old long-sleeved shirt in a shade of dark green and a pair of jeans that likely had not been washed for awhile. While they didn't smell, they were fairly wrinkled and sagging at the back so that she was constantly hitching them up. Apparently, her little sister had dug through the floor of her closet rather than search dresser drawers where more pristine clothes might be.

Still, it was better than nothing, and after refolding Marshall's outfit for him to put on later, she exited the restroom to find that she had been gone just long enough. Mark was there, shuffling around with his hands in his pockets and stealing covert glances to the slumbering Marshall, as if wondering if Mary had gone off and left him to fend for himself.

Mark first heard her making her way across the floor, the old tennis shoes Brandi had brought her making a squeaking sound on the linoleum. He turned, somewhat expectant, but whatever anticipation he felt vanished almost at once to make room for anxiety. The tangled hair, worn lines, and sleep-dusted eyes in Mary's face didn't indicate she would be in a much better mood than she'd been in earlier.

But, if for no other reason than that she didn't want to hash anything out over a long period of time, she was determined to play nice. Be a good sport and get it over with.

"Hi," Mark started simple, but did not step toward her.

"Hello."

Next, he went with something easy, "How's Alice doing?"

"She's good," she reported, not meaning to sound quite as stiff as she did. "Surgery in a few hours."

"Ah."

Here, Mary folded her arms over her chest as though to protect herself from something, but Mark was not the volatile one in their relationship. Perhaps she felt she had something to defend, be it her past actions or future ones she was likely going to engage in. She wasn't the best at being able to predict how she was going to react; she jumped in first and asked questions or backtracked later.

"Where's Norah?" she ventured, hoping she had not tagged along.

"At home. Getting ready for school, I hope."

"By herself?"

"No," Mark refuted with a hint of disdain. "Jill's there."

As far as Mary was concerned, this wasn't much better than her daughter being left to fend for herself, but she didn't say so. If she wanted to get through this with as little bloodshed as possible and move on, she was going to have to keep her opinions to herself.

"How'd that go over?"

"She'll survive," Mark replied curtly. "I said I'd come down and get an update on Alice. I might be able to call Jill so she has something to tell Norah before she heads to class."

"Mmm hmm…" the woman hummed. "Well, you can tell her she's fine. If you need to go to work I can let you know when the operation is over and you can fill Norah in again – or, I can."

This was a sneaky invitation, a way of indicating that she wished he would go to the office and wait for news, even if she didn't say it so explicitly. When Mark didn't respond, merely nodded, Mary had the feeling he had understood the implication just as she'd meant it. Sighing, she knew they could not stand around awkwardly forever – it wasn't even like them. As Marshall had said, duking it out tended to be everyone's method of communication. Hers with her ex was really no different.

"You want to sit for a minute?" she couldn't believe she was asking him, but she gestured toward an empty couch against the wall against her better judgment. "Marshall's practically comatose, so…" by this, she supposed she meant they would not be interrupted.

"I guess so…"

Looking as reluctant as Mary did, he followed her across the room and they both settled themselves next to one another, but with considerable distance. With a basis she couldn't explain, this made Mary feel odd. While she was the one contributing to most of this discomfort, it suddenly felt strange to be so cut off from Mark.

When Norah had been younger, they'd touched all the time – or, as much as Mary touched anyone. It used to be that he couldn't leave her house without pecking her on the cheek and giving her a boyish wave. He would call her 'kid' and look at her with his big, brown eyes, either elated because she was in good spirits, or concerned when she was down in the dumps. Recalling all the times that she had-had a problem – when she'd been at odds with Marshall, when Norah had been troubling her for any number of reasons, after Brandi had given birth to Robyn and she'd come apart at the seams – all Mark wanted to do was help her.

Now, she thought of all the issues he had-had as of late, and how little assistance she'd given him. It was always the bare minimum, and he was always put second next to Norah. In some ways, that was to be expected, but given their daughter's behavior recently, it stood to reason she could side with her ex on occasion. But, she never did.

Part of Mary regretted all this. Part of her was selfish and wanted to keep being so. For once, she told the latter to shut up and opted to be the bigger person.

"I haven't been very fair to you lately."

Whatever Mark had been prepared for, it wasn't this, and understandably so. You had to fight with Mary to get what you wanted. But, even as his eyebrows arched and his neck craned backward, he didn't miss the opportunity to work some disapproval in.

"You got the memo, huh?"

Mary bit her tongue in trying to gulp down a retort. He was infuriating sometimes, but she knew she'd been pretty enraging earlier. She supposed he was entitled to still be miffed.

"I deserve that," she admitted. "Although, don't go spreading that around."

"Your secret's safe with me," he mocked.

"Look, Mark, I…" exhaling slowly, she found her face in her hands, staring at the inside of her palms, running from her fiends as usual. Facing the lights once more, but staring straight ahead instead of at him, "I really don't know what's wrong with me. I want to be better for you. I do. But, I open my mouth and something different always comes out…"

It wasn't much of an excuse, and she knew she really shouldn't be making any, but it was the best she could come up with. In her mind, she rallied around Mark, granting him his happiness and his openness toward transforming into such a responsible man, though he had been that for many years. And yet, whenever she tried to act on that loyalty, it never worked.

"Well, I'm almost afraid to ask this…" he began in a resigned sort of way. "But, what is it about my life that pisses you off to the point where you don't even want me around? I mean, I get that tonight was different; it was a crisis, and I should've listened even if I was only trying to help…"

"I'm sorry about that," Mary interjected. "The way I reacted was ridiculous. Taking a leaf out of Norah's book with that one."

"Well, I wasn't that stellar myself," he shrugged. "But, I wouldn't mind an answer to that question."

Talk about putting someone on the spot, especially when Mary's mind was full to the brim with thoughts of Alice and how she was going to fare once she had to go under the knife. But, there was nothing she could do for her little girl at this point except wait, and she might as well spend the time doing something constructive – at least until Marshall woke up and she could have a good reason to ditch Mark in favor of her husband.

But, in attempting to imagine what about Mark had her so disgruntled, she had a tough time pinning down anything concrete. Everything she came up with was so minor in the grand scheme of things. She should be a good enough person – a good enough friend – to let them go. It saddened her slightly that she wasn't so heroic.

"I don't know…" she started out playing ignorant, shaking her head and causing her matted hair to swirl around her face. "I guess part of me is jealous – jealous that you can separate everything into different compartments. You can find a way to be content in your life with Jill and this rug-rat that's going to come along without letting Norah ruin it."

"Not that she hasn't tried…"

"But, that's not what I mean," Mary insisted, understanding it a little more clearly herself now. "You have this section of your life where you're happy, regardless of what Norah thinks. And then you have this other section where your worry about her lives, but you somehow you're able to keep them from merging…" It was muddled and disjointed, but she was just glad to be able to see more plainly, "I really don't know how to do that."

The questions weren't over, "What do you mean?"

"The way she's been these last couple of years has consumed my life," the woman admitted with wild abandon, unable to help speculating how Marshall would react if he'd heard such a thing. "I feel like I don't go a second without thinking about where she's going to end up or if she's even going to be okay. And, look at you…" she even scanned him up and down, as though considering him from all angles. "Since she started middle school, you've managed to find a girl and buy a house and experience fatherhood all over again."

"Is that really a good thing?" he sounded doubtful, leaning his chin in his hand in a melancholy sort of way. "To me, it seems pretty egotistical that I can breeze through life while my kid is such a mess. Isn't that why you've really been mad at me?"

"Maybe a little…" Mary wouldn't commit completely, however. "But, that doesn't make it right. Being responsible for your own happiness doesn't render you incapable of caring about Norah. If I've ever made you feel like you're not enough for her…"

"Ah, only about a dozen times or so," he winked to show he was joking.

"I apologize," she finished. "But, again, don't go spreading that around. You're a great dad and I'm sure you'll make one when you get geared up for round two in a few months."

"Well, you're a good mom," it was obvious he felt freer to reciprocate now that she'd paid him a compliment. "Seems kind of weird that we're both decent parents, but we haven't been able to work together on this."

"Change is really a bitch for me, Mark…" the blonde might as well have out with all of it if she was going to do this; she hoped she could count on her ex not to hold her vulnerabilities against her. "I mean, when you compare my life to yours – I've been in the same place for almost seven years, since Alice was born."

"You say that like it's a negative thing," he offered shrewdly. "I think, a long time ago, you discovered what's fulfilling for you and you've made your home with it. What's wrong with that?"

For the first time in several minutes, Mary took a moment to process what he had said. She had never prided herself on her ability to accept alterations; she ran from any kind of revolution like she was being chased by a rabid dog. It was the seven-year-old that still percolated in her soul, the one who had-had her world rocked to its core by a father that had bolted and never looked back. Since that day, she'd fought changes tooth and nail, even putting the greatest life she could hope for in jeopardy because of it – during the days when she'd refused to marry Marshall.

But, now, when she was securely in a rut, she began to wonder if it was a groove she wanted or needed to crawl her way out of. Mark's statement held a lot of merit. Finally, after so many years of discord and uncertainty with her given family, she had formed a circle of her own. And she was sticking to it. Maybe she still wished Jinx could be a part of it, maybe she had a daughter that was caught between two universes at constant, but anymore it was her normal. A little bit of mayhem was a trade off for the refuge being part of a team gave her. A team that was made up of her husband, her children, Stan, and many others in-between.

When Mary didn't speak right away, Mark must've thought he needed to elaborate.

"I'm the late bloomer here, kid…" it was heartening to hear the aged moniker resurface. "Hell, Norah was right – I could be a grandpa and I'm going to have an infant again. But, this is the hand I was dealt. I might be a little late to the game, but I don't want to sit on the sidelines anymore…"

"You shouldn't have to," she whispered somberly, folding her hands prayerfully. "My stupid misgivings or about what it's going to mean for Norah shouldn't stand in the way."

"Well, I don't want you to think I'm not considering Norah," he amended seriously. "It's killing me that she's having such a hard time with this. But, all I can do is keep trying…"

"You think we can start trying as a unit? You know, like we used to?"

Her brain conjured up an image of old at that minute, looping in her mind like a roll of jittery filmstrip. She saw herself, chubby and swollen, snuggled together with her ex-husband, commiserating over the temporary loss of their child, holed up and sequestered from the rest of their tight-knit community. It felt like it had been decades ago and, Mary realized with a start, that it very nearly had been.

When Norah had run away in an attempt to patch up her crumbling family, Mary had sparred with Mark – badly, to the point where he'd driven her to tears. But, he'd taken his lumps and owned up to his mistakes, just as she was doing now. And then, they had banded together, held hands and recognized how unique their connection really was. Marshall and Brandi, Jill and Stan and Lia, all of them adored Norah, but they were not her parents. Nobody took that title away from the people who were, and as she had lain with her head on Mark's chest, trying not to picture their worst fears coming true, she knew if they could get through that, they could get through anything.

Mark, she could see, was coming to terms with it as well, but not without making a few ground rules.

"You think you can cut Jill some slack?"

Mary chewed her lip, "Alice will teach me to," she claimed. "Or, Marshall will."

"Because, you're not the only one who worked her ass off for a stable family, Mare," he continued. "She wants that too. But, she needs you to let her in."

"I'll work on it," she said. "Make some wiggle room. You know."

Mark gave her a half-smile at her agreement, an agreement that was so like Mary – not willing to lay everything on the line and make promises, but to go about the deed in a round-about way. She wouldn't sacrifice her dignity for anything, but she wouldn't be Mary if she were any different.

"Are you really half as bad as you pretend to be?"

The inquiry was rhetorical, and Mary knew it; she could tell by the way Mark was grinning. But, she had an image to uphold, and with everything else in her existence going haywire, she liked to have one solid to cling to. Not counting Marshall, forever her safe harbor in even the worst of storms.

"You bet I am. But, take heart…" she slapped his shoulder and produced a smirk to match his. "If Jill gets on my good side, I'll protect her to the bitter end just like I do everyone else. Blast the threats on their asses with two rounds from my glock. I hope you're looking forward to that day."

"Oh…" he said with a pleasant laugh. "I sure am."

XXX

 **A/N: I figure they could start to pass into calmer waters. Hopefully, that is a good thing!**


	38. Chapter 38

**A/N: Much appreciation for those still hanging in there!**

XXX

In spite of all of Mary's certainties that Alice's surgery would not go off as planned, because she was always looking for hazards even where there were none, it turned out to be a success. The doctors informed she and Marshall that Alice had made it through with flying colors and that, as long as there were no additional problems, she could go home on Saturday. That, to Mary, seemed an awfully long way away when it was hardly Thursday morning, but she knew she should be grateful. Considering the horror she had felt the night before, she knew the outcome could've been so much worse.

It took the little girl some time to come out of the anesthesia, and even when she did, she was loopy and groggy. This made Mary's heart race, because Alice didn't seem to entirely recognize the figures around her and complained in a raspy voice of pain every time she so much as twitched. A lot of bullying from Mary got her a sedative so she could gain some more sleep, not to mention something else for her discomfort. Though she longed to be with her daughter, and Marshall was practically in agony not being able to talk to her, they both knew it was for the best.

It wasn't until afternoon that she regained full consciousness, but the woman didn't have high hopes for her attitude. Whatever they'd given her to take down her pain level, she knew it was likely wearing off and that-that was why she was awake. Marshall was leaning against the wall by the window, staring out of it and down at the street below. Mary had been playing with her cell phone, checking messages from Stan to see how things were going at the office, and so both of them were startled when they heard the squeaking and rustling coming from the bed.

"Mmm…" the sound came from high in her throat, and sounded more like a whine than a hum; it was shrill and unsure. Blinking her shining eyes, faded from sleep, she saw Mary sitting across from her, "…Mommy…?"

The blonde almost jumped and discarded her phone to the bedside table at once, scooting her chair as close to the bed as it would go; it made a harsh scraping sound on the linoleum. Making eyes at Marshall to join her, she saw that he was already on his way, abandoning his people-watching to sit with his child at last.

"Hi, Little Bit…" Mary crooned in a far more sugary voice than she thought she would adopt; it made her sound shockingly like Jinx. "How you feeling?"

It took her a moment to respond. She continued to blink, orienting herself with her surroundings, which made her squint at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. There was hesitancy in the way she moved, and even though it was clear she was being cautious, she still winced when she tried.

"My tummy hurts…" she groaned, making Mary wish that she could go her whole life without ever hearing that phrase again. "Where's daddy?"

On cue, Marshall rumpled her unkempt curls from above and dropped into the empty chair on the opposite side of the bed. At this touch, Alice tried to turn around, and while Mary's instinct was to dissuade her, she knew she was going to want to see her father. She sacrificed her discomfort by helping her roll over at least halfway so she was lying on her back instead of her side.

"Hello there, gorgeous…" Marshall intoned with a warm smile, reaching for her hand beneath the blankets. "Where would I have gone, huh? I've been waiting all day to see my girl."

"Daddy, my belly hurts," she repeated, as if he hadn't heard the first time.

He was sympathetic, "I know, sugar," he said as he rubbed her hair again. "It'll hurt for a few days, I'm afraid. But, you will have quite the impressive scar when all is said and done – well, you already do," he amended. "We'll have to get a good look at it when you're feeling a little more robust."

Alice was not enthused, "Scars are ugly."

But, Marshall was good at playing the game, "Oh, be still my heart!" he put a hand to his chest as though he had been wounded and closed his eyes for effect, causing Mary to grin. "Calling my lesions unattractive! I've got quite a few, you know."

"Lesions?" she murmured in a small voice.

"A fancy word for scar," Mary broke in, rolling her eyes in hopes of seeing her smile.

"And, I do have plenty many," the man reminded her with a raised finger. "My most striking would probably be right here on the old shoulder…" motioning toward the cuff where the skin was, of course, covered by his shirt.

If he thought Alice was going to fall for his act, hook, line, and sinker, he was mistaken. She continued to frown and look depressed, and when she spoke, it was not with reverence for her father's daring deeds.

"That's where the mean bad guys shot you."

There was no fear there, as it had happened long before her time, but there was definite glum etched in her tone. It was as though all she could think about was the misfortune they had both been through, but Mary understood Marshall's method. He wanted his daughter to feel a part of something, and if they were talking scars, the Mann-Shannons definitely had those in common.

"You've got that right," Marshall concurred, still not losing his cheeriness. "In the middle of nowhere, mind you. If mom weren't around, I don't think I'd be here to tell the tale."

"Talk about an exaggeration," Mary interrupted. "Seriously, Alice. He had to show me how to make a seal with a water bottle so the air in his chest could escape…?" she wrinkled her nose at Marshall to demonstrate she knew she was getting this wrong, but he only nodded approvingly. "The whole thing filled with blood. I didn't have a clue what I was doing."

"And modest, too," the chief teased. "Rest assured, Alice. This is the one you want in your foxhole," pointing across the bed at his wife.

The six-year-old did not look like she doubted this, but it did nothing to change her disposition. This disappointed Mary, and she was sure Marshall felt the same way, but he didn't let his emotions betray him. He looked right into Alice's stony face and kept on smiling, as if hoping his manufactured cheeriness would rub off on her.

"Do you have a scar too, mommy?" the brunette proposed, leaving Marshall's experience behind and flicking her eyes to Mary.

"A few," she replied. "The biggest one is on my stomach, and then I have a matching one on my back. You remember that, don't you?"

"I don't see it very much."

"Well, no. I don't exactly walk around in skimpy shirts showing off my belly button. You go to Brandi if you want outfits like that."

"That's because some scary men shot you too."

What had started out as a fun conversation, although expecting gunfire to be fun was a bit of a stretch, had turned dark. Mary really didn't want Alice reflecting back on times that she had not been a part of; worrying about her parents in dangerous streets and having bullets go through their bodies. There was nothing amusing about it, equivalent scars or not.

"We don't have to talk about that if you don't want to," she told her daughter, wanting to shut this down. "I'm okay now, dad's okay – and you're gonna be okay too. The scars are all you'll have to show for all you went through. Seems pretty unfair, if you ask me."

Alice didn't bite, "Can I look at yours?"

"My, what?"

"Scar."

Marshall raised his eyebrows from the other side of the room, but he knew that Alice would be anticipatory and curious even in her fog, and that he could trust Mary not to let her down. After all, everyone had been looking at her whenever they pleased – doctors, nurses, family members; everyone. The least that could be done for her was to be shown that others had their battle marks as well, from the times they hadn't been able to hang onto their humility – marks that would remind them every day of a trying experience they hadn't wanted to go through.

But, just in case Mary was vacillating, he nodded slowly while Alice wasn't looking and saw her close her eyes slowly in acquiescence.

"Yeah, I guess so…"

Standing up, Alice's blue orbs following her the entire time, she gave her too-baggy jeans a snag and lifted the hem of her shirt to reveal the line that ran from just below her ribcage and snaked around her navel. It had lightened as the years had elapsed, so that it was less red and more of a pinkish grey. Mary herself didn't give it much thought anymore, but looking at it now, she was struck once again by how long it actually was. Those surgeons had done a number on her, not to mention the gangbangers.

Peering down at it, she caught Alice's wide-eyed face, her mouth only slightly open. It wasn't the first time she'd gotten to view it, but it had been awhile.

"Crazy, right?" Mary said in an attempt to lighten the mood. "It used to be a lot gnarlier; it's not so ugly now."

She plopped back in her chair before the first grader could ask to see the one on her back which was, in fact, still fairly gruesome. Mary herself didn't catch sight of it too often just because of its location; she supposed Marshall was the one who got an eyeful, but he never said anything. She wondered if it bothered him.

Fortunately, Alice let the past go but, regrettably, chose to focus more securely on the present.

"Mine will be ugly."

Instead of telling her otherwise, because she was obviously set in her ways, Mary joshed her about it. It was unwise, and she knew the second it was out of her mouth that it was a mistake, but as she'd said to Mark, she so many times did not think before she spoke.

"Well, it's a good thing Halloween is right around the corner," she pointed out. "The height of disgusting. You won't even have to use makeup."

Alice's eyes shone with hope, "Will I get to go trick-or-treating?"

The two inspectors exchanged edgy glances that, if Alice were in better shape, she would not have missed. Marshall gave a weary sigh and Mary immediately looked at the ground, delaying the inevitable a little longer. Neither one of them had wanted to have this discussion in the first few minutes after Alice woke up, but thanks to Mary and her big mouth, there was no avoiding it.

"Well, sugar…" bless Marshall for picking up the slack, even though he wasn't the one who had slipped up. "The thing is, you really won't be fit to go home by tomorrow. Even if you were, you aren't going to be up for running around the neighborhood."

"Yes, I will!" Alice insisted, trying to sit up, the effort of which made tears spring to her eyes, but that could've been from disappointment as well as pain. "Aren't I a big girl? Aren't I tough enough?"

"Of course you are," her father assured her.

"That isn't the point, though," Mary chimed in, backing him up. "I know you think you can handle it Alice, but you can't – nobody would be able to. You're going to be tired enough and your belly is going to be sore enough that you won't want to trick-or-treat…"

"That isn't true!" she bleated, and her mother could definitely hear the sorrow in her voice now; it broke on the final word. "I _will_ want to go! I don't care if my stomach hurts; I'll be brave…"

"It's a moot point," the blonde shook her head, forgetting that her child would not know what this expression meant. "You aren't going home until Saturday, and by then Halloween will be over."

She knew she sounded blunt, maybe even unfeeling, and she truly didn't mean to. Halloween might mean nothing to her, minus the bags of candy they would snack on in the weeks after. It had never been her chosen holiday – she found the costumes moronic and the merriment nauseating. Not to mention, all the sugar caused the girls to bounce off the walls and she forever worried about them running along the darkened streets in the cold, even if she and Marshall were with them. It was the cop in her – nowhere was safe, and certainly not dusk on an October night when all kinds of people were out and about just looking for little kids to prey on.

But, it really wasn't for her that she was disheartened – it was for Alice. For the past two weeks, almost the only topic of conversation had been the quest for the perfect costume. She had been completely enraptured with the thought of dressing up and collecting treats, not to mention the celebration at school – something she was also going to miss. You were only young once.

It seemed the brunette was just realizing the magnitude her stay in the hospital was going to bring as well, because her eyes grew even rounder in her pale face as she looked at Mary in disbelief.

"But, if I can't go home until Saturday, then I won't get to go to the party at school either!" her whine was strident; any minute now she was going to be bawling like a siren. "We were going to have cookies and a parade and Miss Whitmore even said there was going to be someone to make balloon animals!"

Mary knew the frustration was real for a girl of Alice's age, and she really didn't know what to say; there was nothing she could do. But, unfortunately, it only got worse.

"And, last year, I only went to kindergarten in the morning and I didn't even get to be in the parade with the big kids because their party is in the afternoon! I just did the dumb old parade with only my class, and that's not the same!"

Mary had forgotten this. In many ways, this would be the first Halloween Alice would really remember. If she couldn't recall Jinx's funeral, when she'd only been four, it stood to reason she couldn't recall holidays of years past. It made the whole thing even gloomier.

"I'm sorry, beautiful…" Marshall bestowed, fingering her hair, as if that would help anything. "I know it isn't fair, but we're stuck on this one. I would change it for you if I could."

"But, you _can't!_ " she spat hatefully, proving just how thwarted she really felt, because she never spoke to Marshall in such a way.

"No, I can't," his agreement might stop some kids in their tracks, but Mary was willing to bet it would only send Alice into a further tailspin because it was harder to argue with. "Life doesn't work that way, unfortunately."

"You'll have next year, babe," the woman cut in, knowing this would be of no comfort at all, but also knowing she had little else to say. "And, you'll have a whole year to come up with the perfect outfit – even better than whatever you were going to be this year."

"But, I didn't even get a chance to pick anything!"

Had she been well, Mary would've wasted no time telling her that this was her own fault for being so indecisive, but now was not the time. It wasn't as if it mattered anyway. When Halloween was not even going to exist for Alice, then a costume became obsolete.

"That's what I'm saying, though," still, the inspector powered on, despising herself for sounding so saccharinely optimistic; it was not in her nature and was a foreign shade on her normally acidic self. "Sure, you might've come up with something great _this_ year, but now whatever you think of for _next_ year will be even better because you'll have had so much more time to consider it…"

Mary trailed off when she realized she was getting tongue-tied; she wasn't making sense and was merely babbling like an idiot. Regardless of what nonsense was coming out of her mouth, Alice obviously did not think it was gold, because she had begun to cry for real. Big, fat tears welled in her eyes and immediately rolled down her cheeks. Chin warbling, the shaking, heaving sobs came next, which made her entire body tremble – already weakened from surgery not twenty-four hours before.

It was an effort for Mary not to sigh, but she wasn't sure why. She understood her daughter's feeling like she was missing out in the worst way possible, but she was not exactly the best at delivering reassurance. Witnesses were one thing; they were typically adults, and tough love often worked wonders. When it didn't, she could pull a few sentimental quotes out of her pocket – she had more of a cache than usual since she lived with Marshall – and call it a day. Kids were harder, especially when it was her own little girl, whom she wanted so badly to do right by and had forever felt she had nothing in common with.

Fortunately, there was a reason she had wed someone who was her opposite, but also her best possible counterpart. Marshall had swooped in before she could even scramble her thoughts together, his arm wound around Alice's back, guiding her head into his chest.

"You're a good girl, and you didn't deserve this," he murmured in her ear, like she was twenty-five years old and some foolish boy had broken her heart. "I'm so sorry you're sad, gorgeous. I know it's terrible to be sick and then know all your friends get to have fun without you…"

Alice's speech was clogged and messy when she finally forced a few words out, not to mention muffled since she was cuddling up against her father.

"Can't I…at least…get some…candy?" she hiccupped.

Marshall shot what was possibly a look of confirmation toward his wife, who nodded even though she needn't have done. He would do anything to make his little girl feel better, whatever Mary thought.

"Yeah, I'm sure we can arrange that," he promised. "What kind do you want?"

Before she could answer, and before Mary could calculate whether doctors would actually let her daughter ingest sweets by the next day, the door on the far side of the room swung open, causing her to turn around.

Alice didn't move, still wrapped up in her seemingly enormous loss, and therefore Marshall kept his pose as well. But, Mary was focused, at least for a moment, on the person to stroll into the room – a person who was in much better spirits than the mother had seen her in sometime. There was nothing to account for this, just as there was nothing to account for her unexpected kindness the night before, but she would take it a thousand times over when you considered the alternative.

Norah bounded in as though she owned the place, reminding Mary rather heartbreakingly of how she used to behave when she was Alice's age. All that energy and light and self-confidence was projected in her at this very moment. The older blonde could not imagine it had anything to do with school, given recent reports. Maybe she was simply trying harder, as those around her had been begging her to do for so long. Given the current situation, it was about time.

"Hey!" she called, not with outright enthusiasm, but with definite pleasantness.

"Bug, what are you doing here?" Mary wanted to know, a little more frank than she'd been aiming for.

"Jill brought me."

"Jill's here too?"

"No. She dropped me off. Dad's going to pick me up in a little bit when he's done with work."

Mary supposed it would not be very tactful to question her teenager outright why she would even _want_ to be in the hospital, considering her typical attitude toward Alice. In any case, her attention had shifted off her mom and onto the one in the bed, who was still weeping like she'd had an arm cut off along with her appendix.

"Hi, Alice," she said, as if nothing was wrong at all. "Hi, Marshall."

"Hey, champ…" he smiled, clearly feeling hopeful considering all the lightheartedness she was spreading around without warning. Disentangling himself from Alice, who was busy wiping her snot on her pillow, he spread the word, "Someone is a little unhappy because it looks like Halloween is going to be put on hold until next year."

Norah blinked and gave a slow nod, her eyes probing between her step-father and sister. Mary was still trying to figure out where all of her energy had spurned from, when she'd been slogging around like a sloth for as many days as she could now remember. If she looked hard enough, she thought she could practically see the wheels whirring in her brain to come up with a sensitive comment to Alice's mishap.

And, low and behold, she actually found one.

"Sorry…" it wasn't heartfelt, but it was politically correct. "That sucks. You want me to bring you a costume to wear or something? You could ditch that tiger gown…"

Even with the slight on her current clothes, Mary was nothing short of stunned by the offer her older daughter was presenting. She wanted to do something nice for somebody else, not to mention the little sister she forever referred to as a brat? She was half-tempted to ask where the real Norah was, if she was bound and gagged in the closet at home.

"I never picked a costume," Alice sniffled, not immediately as grateful for the proposal as the inspector was. "I don't have one."

"I could pick one for you," Norah was determined, it seemed.

"But, you don't even like dressing up."

"Yeah, I know…"

She seemed to think for a moment, recognizing the truth in Alice's words, and knowing that even if she was trying to be kind, there might be no follow through if she couldn't get past her own distaste for make-believe.

"Well, what about if I ask Robyn?" she eventually volunteered. "I could find out what she thinks. We could get you a costume and bring it to you tomorrow."

Alice was not entirely sold, no doubt speculating, just as her mother was, on where this new-and-improved Norah had come from. Scowling through her blotchy eyes with one hand crossed over her wounded stomach, she appraised her sister with a critical glance.

"It won't be the same as trick-or-treating," she complained, sound so sour that it made resemble the teenager. "And, no place will have costumes, anyway. All the good ones won't be in the stores anymore."

Mary thought this was an excellent point, one she would not have expected Alice to come up with. Norah was going out on a limb thinking she could whip up something magical, but she clearly had a plan and was sticking to it. The first grader's grievances didn't deter her one iota.

"Who says I need a store?" the blonde held up her hands and cast a wily look at them all. "You and Robyn have enough stuff to _make_ a costume. I mean, you wanted something different, right? Something nobody else has dressed as before?"

"You can't sew."

"I'm not going to _sew_ – this isn't 'Little House on the Prairie.'"

"Then, how are you supposed to _make_ something?"

"You'll see."

She was certainly pleased with herself and, regardless of her out-of-character jollity Marshall, for one, seemed more prone to taking it than leaving it. Before Alice could nix the initiative another time, set in the idea that the holiday was to be spoiled and that was that, he spoke up on his step-daughter's behalf. This kind of benevolence didn't come around every day, after all.

"I think it is a fine idea," he asserted with a crisp nod, grinning at Mary, who was still looking rather dazed and dumbstruck. "I'm all for surprises. Since when are you oppose to them, sugar?" he jostled her shoulder playfully.

She came up with a clever retort, "I didn't like the last surprise I got."

By this, she meant her near-bursting appendix and subsequent surgery, and although it wasn't funny, Marshall couldn't help himself from laughing. He loved a quick-witted girl.

"I don't imagine this will compare to that," he chuckled. Getting control of himself, he turned to Norah and offered her a look of sincere approval. "It's very nice of you to want to help, Norah."

The girl positively beamed at his appreciation, something she did not receive very often, and this seemed to urge her onward in her promises. Mary just hoped she wouldn't get carried away and end up guaranteeing a gift she could not make good on.

"I'll get lots of candy in school tomorrow," she declared. "Even though we don't get a party or anything, last year a lot of the teachers still gave us bags with chocolate or Halloween pencils or stickers in them – like we're babies or something." Apparently, she realized the slip-up into her old, disdainful self and hurried to cover it up. "But, you can have some of it if you want. I'll bring it tomorrow night."

Alice raised an eyebrow, "Really?"

"Sure," a shrug. "We could even decorate your room."

Now she was getting curious, "How?"

Norah was two steps ahead of her, "I could take the lights from the house – the ones you and Marshall put up outside – and bring them in here and plug them in. And Brandi has all those ghost cut-outs that they put on their front lawn – with the fake headstones and everything."

"That would look weird in here," Alice decided, but she was grinning as she said it.

"Well, Halloween is weird," the seventh grader agreed. "The weirder the better, right? I don't even know where they came up with it a billion years ago and said people should celebrate by knocking on random people's doors and begging for candy like homeless hobos…"

"Actually," Marshall chimed in, pointer finger raised and ready to educate. "The term Halloween is derived from 'All Hallow's Eve' and was first celebrated in Ireland and Scotland, marked by October thirty-first because that was when…"

"Here we go…" Mary groaned with a roll of her eyes.

And, when both girls started to laugh, their eyes shining at the rapport between the adults surrounding them, Mary didn't care where this newfound Norah had come from. She just knew she would keep her.

XXX

 **A/N: Tension easing at last. ;)**


	39. Chapter 39

**A/N: Rolling along…**

XXX

That evening, Mary found herself unexplainably happy in spite of all that had occurred in the last twenty-four hours. It felt almost asinine to her to be experiencing any kind of joy, what with her daughter having just gone through major surgery, but she couldn't help herself. There was a sort of understated gaiety bubbling in her stomach, a sensation she couldn't remember feeling in so long. It took her back to the days when she had first embraced Marshall into her world as more than a partner – when she'd laid eyes on Norah for the first time, when she and her husband-to-be had brought Alice home from the hospital. No, it wasn't quite so strong now, but the beginnings were rumbling underneath.

It was amazing what one little show of compassion and consideration by her oldest daughter could do for her. Like Norah, it seemed she had also been hankering for a little window into her past – when things had been a lot simpler and a lot more carefree. Life was not all popsicles and summer sunshine and sidewalk chalk, like it had been when Norah was young, but Mary would take what she could get right now.

So, why she borrowed trouble, she would never know. There must've been a recklessness broiling in her that was only fueled by an optimism she so rarely experienced. As darkness began to fall outside the waiting room, the remnants of dinner – chicken sandwiches and French fries from the McDonalds down the street – covering the coffee table, a drowsy but liberated Mary spotted Robyn in the chair across from her. Brandi had brought her and Max for a visit after they'd had supper at home, leaving Peter behind to clean up the dishes.

Her niece was perched in the chair with her legs tucked under her, thumbs flying at breakneck speed as she, presumably, texted on her phone. Brandi was off in the corner with Max, helping him put together a puzzle that no child who ever entered pediatrics could've possibly mastered, given how many pieces it had. Marshall was back in Alice's room, Norah having gone home hours earlier once Mark, as promised, had arrived to pick her up after work.

"Watchya doing, babe?" Mary shot off, acting on her kicky feeling, though she knew perfectly well what Robyn was doing.

It took the girl a moment to look up, as she was obviously absorbed in whomever she was talking to. According to Brandi, it practically took the Jaws of Life to pry her away from her phone. Eventually, however, she did abandon the message, although it was with the air that she was surprised to find someone speaking to her.

"Me?"

Mary glanced around, "You see anyone else here?"

Robyn huffed impatiently at this, knowing she had set herself up for sarcasm by acting like she wasn't even on this planet. Not discarding her phone right away, she shrugged.

"I was texting Sydney."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?"

"You asked," Robyn reminded her.

"You're right," Mary admitted, sitting up a little further and deciding that if she was going to make small talk, she might as well do it well. Leaning her elbow on the armrest, she held Robyn's gaze with her own, hoping she wouldn't dive right back into her message right away. "So, who is Sydney? Some friend of yours?"

The sixth grader was woolly in her reply, "Kind of."

"Kind of?" Mary repeated, eyebrows high. "Doesn't sound like _much_ of a friend if you can't even decide how friendly you really are."

This was irony at its finest, considering Mary would probably portray most of her acquaintances the same way – she had never been much for bosom buddies. And, knowing how middle school worked, she could guess that Robyn's picture was probably accurate. You had a different best pal every hour during those rocky teenage years.

"Well, she's older than me," the child volunteered by way of explanation.

"A seventh grader?" Mary guessed, thinking she might've met this person through the grapevine, what with having a cousin in the same year.

Robyn bit her lip, looking nervous but also pleased with herself, "Eighth."

It wasn't a good idea to act shocked, the inspector thought, especially when, instinctively, she was not all that alarmed. Robyn was known for integrating with quite the network of people – it was one of the reasons she thrived in middle school; it was a mecca for mingling if you were the right type of person. It would be just like her niece to have friends in high places, and she was willing to bet the only reason she was fraternizing with this Sydney was so she could have a direct line to all the best gossip. Like mother, like daughter.

"I didn't think underclassman really mixed with the big guns," the woman said, knowing sixth grade was the bottom of the food chain. "You must be pretty special."

Robyn shrugged in a way that was not all-together modest; it appeared she was satisfied with the notion of rubbing shoulders with her version of rich and famous.

"Sydney is one of the most popular girls in the whole school," she shared, as if Mary would care about this at all, but it was clear she couldn't resist. "She has a boyfriend. He gave her a hickey."

"Charming."

"She's been in ISS before too."

"ISS?" Mary wrinkled her nose.

"In-school suspension."

This was not something the Marshal could've predicted hearing, and thought that, frankly, it was a little dumb of her niece not to realize she was talking to her mother's sister. If Brandi knew her kid was exchanging free time with some girl who had gotten herself in the worst version of detention, she would blow a gasket – as would Mary if it were Norah. Fortunately, this was one of the problems with her daughter that she did not have.

"What are you doing hanging out with a person like this?" Mary blurted out before she could stop herself. "Your mom is going to have a coronary when she finds out."

The twelve year old looked scandalized at this act of betrayal, but not entirely worked up.

"You don't have to go and tell her," she hissed, casting an anxious glance at Brandi and Max in the corner. "And we don't _hang out_ ," she emphasized, backpedaling at once. "We just talk sometimes – on the phone, at school…"

"Yeah and when does 'just talking' lead to you ending up in ISS too?"

"She didn't even do anything that bad!" Robyn protested, defending her friend without hesitation. "It's not like she got caught smoking or having sex in the bathroom or anything…"

Mary would admit this was a small comfort, especially considering how disorienting it was hearing her little diva niece, the one who used to wear her hair in pigtails like a dog's, talking about sex like it was nothing.

"So, what _did_ she do?"

"She missed three days of school in a row without anyone calling her in sick or anything."

"Well, then in-school suspension sounds like a brilliant punishment for someone who can't even get their ass to school…" Mary dripped with sarcasm. "Honestly, who comes up with this stuff?"

"I don't want to be her friend because she's supposedly some 'bad girl,'" rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "I'm smarter than that."

This was relieving, in its way, and Mary was not about to say that the only 'smart' thing Robyn could do was avoid _any_ socializing with this eighth grader. It would just have her digging her heels in more, not to mention closing her mouth on the subject all together. And, much as the woman hated to own up to it, even a little bit of insight into the system of locker combinations and passing periods and gum chewing bimbos coupled with boys whose pants were so low you could see their boxers was somewhat welcome. Norah never talked about school.

"So, give me a hint here then, why don't you?" Mary requested slyly, still with her chin in her hand. "Because apparently, I am clueless – first time for everything. If you're not trying to pick up tips on how to bite some guy on the neck, then why are you interested in this girl?"

First, Robyn looked over her shoulder as if checking to make sure Brandi hadn't come any closer in the last two minutes. But, she took so long glancing around for other eavesdroppers that it became ridiculous. Mary humored her because she wanted an answer, but what she really wanted to do was ask if she honestly thought nurses and receptionists were interested in middle school rumors.

"Because it's better to _be_ friends with her, then to _not_ be friends with her," she finally said cryptically. "If you know what I mean."

It was hard not to catch the underlying significance here, what with Robyn winking and wiggling her eyebrows so much that they resembled two very plucked and shaped caterpillars. It would've been a real treat to tell her that her covert skills could use some work, but she passed up the opportunity.

"Better to be in the belly of the beast than to be in its way," Mary theorized blandly. "Pretty sure I get it."

"Mary, she knows _everything_ about _everyone_ ," the twelve-year-old shared, deepening into her story and leaning even further forward so even mice crawling around in the eves wouldn't be able to hear. "I'm not saying _I_ need to know everything, but if she likes you, then she won't spread bad things around…"

"Do you honestly believe that?" the adolescent mind could be so dim.

Robyn ignored her, "Plus, you can find out who's doing what and the stories everyone is telling – she always knows whether they're true or not…"

"Uh-huh…"

"Like, when Aaron Shultz told his math teacher to go to hell and ended up getting suspended, she was the only one who knew what the principal said to him, and she wasn't even there…!"

"Oy…"

"And, if it hadn't been for her, I never would've known which boys were the ones that picked on Norah when her bra fell out of…"

"Wait, what?"

Mary had been zoning out, too terribly bored with her niece's prattling about Sydney and her nest of buzzing bees to bother listening anymore. But, that was until a familiar name caught her ear, and all of a sudden she was sitting up a little straighter, trying to piece together enough words to form a conclusion, because her interruption had caused Robyn to look horrorstruck.

Norah? Boys? Teasing?

 _Bras?_

"What did you say?"

The demand was not entered into lightly. She meant business, and Robyn could clearly tell. Unfortunately, she had already opened her mouth and said too much, caught up in bragging about her jabbering friend that made the whole school nervous wondering what she knew and who she would tell. Robyn's eyes showed that she was scared, their green more pronounced even as she covered her mouth with her hand, as if that would send the information back inside. Knowing Mary as she had for twelve years, she had to be well aware there was no easy way out.

"What did you just say?" Mary was getting loud, and sounding more WITSEC-inspector like than ever. "What was that about Norah and a _bra?_ Norah doesn't even wear bras!"

The look that would be manifesting itself on her daughter's face if she could hear her mother bellowing for the whole floor to hear that she did or did not wear supportive undergarments factored in very little. She was like a shark smelling blood in the water. She had always suspected Robyn had known something about why Norah had turned so snappy and somber. This might finally be her chance to find out.

But, the girl wasn't going to talk right away. She reached for her phone, which she had set on the coffee table, no doubt hoping to hide behind it, but her aunt was too quick for her. She snatched it in two seconds and held it tight.

"Robyn, I'm not kidding…" it was such bad form and so childish to threaten, but she didn't give a damn. "Tell me what you're talking about."

"You can't make me," it was undoubtedly supposed to come out sounding tough, but her voice was too quiet to make much of an impression.

"If you want to see your phone again, you'll spill."

Bargaining with a twelve-year-old – to Robyn, the cell was like a kidnapped child and her information the ransom money. She'd jump off a cliff to get it back.

Sighing, she wagged her head and, once again, looked conspicuously over her shoulder. Brandi and Max were still busy with the puzzle and paying them no attention at all. Marshall was nowhere to be seen. They were in the clear.

It came in a whisper, "I promised her I wouldn't tell."

"Tell what?"

Mary was ravenous, like a starving tiger whose teeth were sharpened for prey. She was so close. So close. Had Robyn held the answers all this time, harboring them in secret just like a good friend would? She and Norah had always gotten along, but they'd never been that close despite the amount of time they had always spent together. Perhaps the perils of middle school were uniting them.

"So, okay…" the sixth grader exhaled again, her body slumping fully into the chair, knowing she'd been defeated. "Seventh grade is the first year that you have to change clothes for gym, right? You don't have PE in sixth grade, and in elementary school, you just wear what you have on…"

"I'm familiar with the process," Mary broke in, impatient for her to get on with it.

"Well, when Norah started taking gym this year, way back when school started in August, she was the only girl in her class that didn't wear a bra."

"How would she know that?"

"Because they change clothes in the locker room and she could see everyone!" Robyn reminded her haughtily, suddenly eager to tell the tale. "And…they could see her."

Ugh. This didn't start out well at all, and Mary had the feeling there was more to come. How could she have been so stupid? Norah didn't exactly _need_ a bra – she wasn't well-endowed by any stretch of the imagination – but, that wasn't the point. To be the sole bare-chested girl in a group of twenty would've been mortifying. Thirteen year old girls were ruthless. The licking she must've taken had to have been harsh. And Norah, with her tomboy nature, who as a kid had hung out with boys, would not have had the wherewithal to think ahead and realize that by seventh grade, most girls wore bras whether they needed them or not.

"Fine, so…" the blonde shook her head, willing herself to let this part go for the time being so she could hear the rest. "She didn't have a bra. What then?"

"Some of the girls made fun of her – not to her face or anything, but they whispered about it," Robyn revealed. "And so, she decided she wanted to get some bras so they wouldn't keep giving her crap about it. She asked Jill to buy her some."

If Mary hadn't been flabbergasted before, she certainly was now. Had she been more self-aware, she would've realized she was behaving exactly like the miscreants her daughter went to school with, but she was past caring about the gossip factor.

"What is she doing asking Jill?" she wanted to know, tone rising without her telling it to. "Why didn't she just ask me? I'd have bought her plenty!"

"She said it was because she knows that you don't really like to talk about this kind of stuff. You know, sex and periods and everything…"

"All right, all right, all right, fine; I get it…" Mary cut her off with a wave of her hand. "Bras are not exactly sex, but whatever. What did Jill do when Norah came to her? Do you know?"

Of course she knew.

"She went and got her some. Only, Norah was pretty embarrassed about it and didn't really want to go with her, so Jill just bought whatever size she thought she needed."

"Yeah…"

"And, Norah wore one of them to school one day, but it was too big."

"Jesus…"

"So, she took it off after gym was over and put it in her backpack."

"And then what?"

"So, then…" Robyn's head rolled side-to-side, as though it was costing her a great effort to continue, pondering how to put the circumstances delicately. "She was at her locker and her bag was unzipped because she was going to put a book inside and she dropped it and the bra fell out and a bunch of the boys saw…"

Having her go on was fairly pointless. Mary could just imagine the hilarity that had ensued – not to mention the humiliation for Norah. If girls were merciless, boys were just as bad, if not worse. There was no shutting them up when it came to underwear and private parts and puberty, especially when they were thirteen years old. They would've ripped into her daughter like lions on a zebra carcass.

"They never shut up about it," Robyn powered on, not giving Mary a chance to say anything. "And, once the boys started making fun of her, the girls did too – and not behind her back, you know?" because right in front of her face was so much better. "The girls started calling her a baby, saying she was a lesbian…"

"A _lesbian?_ " Mary squawked, voice projecting still higher. "She is not a lesbian – what does not wearing a bra have to do with being gay?"

"I don't know – I just know what they say," the twelve-year-old hypothesized. "Maybe because she's never had a boyfriend, they think she's not into guys. They'll say anything just so they can laugh at her. I mean, not just _her_ …" she was quick to clarify. "She's not the only one they make fun of. They pick on anyone just to embarrass them so they don't have to get all embarrassed themselves…"

It was a sickening mob mentality, but the woman was well aware that her niece was right. Anything to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb, even maligning a girl who hadn't done anything wrong. In middle school, the best you could hope for was to blend in, and that either meant keeping your head down and your mouth shut, or joining the ring of tormentors so you didn't become a victim. Norah, sadly, had not been fortunate enough to belong to either category, having been singled out before she could even get her feet wet.

"So…" Mary was sputtering, just hoping she wasn't spraying spit, but going to use the opportunity while Robyn wasn't chattering to her advantage. "So…why wouldn't she tell me about this? Why the big secret?"

For some reason, she thought this would stump the sixth grader. After all, she couldn't know _everything_ that went on Norah's head, but she had an answer for this too.

"She was afraid if you or Marshall or Mark found out that you'd tell someone at school – a teacher or the principal or someone – to get the kids to knock it off," she explained smoothly. "And then everyone would hate her even more because she got them in trouble."

Mary wanted to chalk this up to twisted logic on her teenager's part, but she knew it wasn't. It wasn't as if the bullies weren't bad enough, but if they were given a talking-to, they would know right away who had tattled, which would only add fuel to their fire. What a nasty position Norah had been in, but mostly the inspector – a seasoned US Marshal, for Christ sakes – could not reconcile how blind she had been. How could Norah have come home every day after dealing with people like this and not say a word? How could she, as a mother, not have known what was wrong?

It was far too much to digest, but Robyn hadn't finished yet, and her next words just gave her even more to chew on.

"You know that's why she doesn't like Jill anymore, right?"

Once again, the recognizable moniker was what tore Mary out of her funk. She jerked her head, still trying to make sense of it all.

"What?"

Robyn was kind enough to repeat herself, "Norah – that's why she hates Jill now," she said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. "She thinks that if Jill had bought her the right kind of bras, ones that actually fit, she wouldn't have had to take it off and then it wouldn't have been in her backpack and it couldn't have fallen out. Plus…"

"Plus, what?" it was frightening to think there could be more.

"Well…" again, she waffled, seemingly trying to put her words in the correct order. "She got really pissed at Jill after all this happened…"

"Right, you said."

"And, I guess Jill didn't even get mad at her, except she told Mark why Norah was so angry."

Uh-oh. Mary knew even without Robyn's hand-holding that this had led to nothing good. To have your father know you were being teased because the immature boys in the hallway had basically seen your underwear was a fate worse than death when you were a teenager. Having Mark 'in' on the subject had probably propelled Norah to even more vociferous heights – something they had all witnessed without even knowing why.

"So then, she was mad at _both_ of them. Mark tried to talk to her about forgiving Jill, but that didn't work…"

"Yeah, no kidding," Mary scoffed.

"Norah didn't want you or Marshall to know about it. I thought Mark might've told you by now, except Norah was already so pissed at both he and Jill, maybe he didn't want to make her madder, so he kept the secret."

This was pure speculation, it seemed, but Mary was willing to bet it was valid. She didn't even really care that Mark had kept everything to himself. For one, according to Robyn it had occurred at the start of school, which was now almost three months ago. Maybe he figured it was water under the bridge and didn't understand that his daughter was holding a grudge.

While the mother was a little irritated Jill had not come to her about buying her kid bras, she had a margin of understanding for that as well. Jill had probably been overjoyed that Norah had tried to share something so personal with her, and had vowed to keep it between them. When it had gone south, it was probably like Robyn had said – she didn't want to make things worse when she was already being blamed for screwing up.

Add in the engagement and the baby, and it was no wonder Norah was flying off the handle at every turn. Still, the fact remained that the teenager herself had never confided in her own mother. Mary couldn't help feeling guilty – for being closed off enough that her daughter would not approach her – and also hurt. She'd thought they were closer than this. She'd always assumed when it came to puberty and being a woman and everything else, Norah would voice her concerns. That she hadn't showed Mary just how far apart they had drifted.

"You want to know what else I think?" Robyn butted in, clearly disregarding the flummoxed look on her aunt's face, like she'd been slapped.

Mary didn't know how much more she could take, but she grabbed for the dangling carrot anyway.

"About what?"

"I think Norah started her period."

Talk about the icing on the cake. Like bras weren't bad enough. Mary did her best not to look squirmy, because it was apparently this quality that had driven her child to run for the hills when it came to growing up.

"Why?" the woman murmured, wondering how on earth Robyn could be aware of such a thing, but not know for sure. "She'd tell me that; she wouldn't have something like that happen and then…"

"I don't know," the girl interrupted. "She didn't even tell _me_ , for sure. But, she called me last night after she got to Mark's, because she wanted to tell me about the fight you guys had, and she asked me if I had any, you know…" Even brazen Robyn could not use the technical terms, "Stuff."

Stuff. Stuff. Pads. Tampons. Who knew anymore?

But, dismal as the outlook was, this knowledge brought Mary a small ray of hope. Unlike the incident with the bra, if Norah had indeed had a visit from what Jinx used to call "Aunt Flow," it had not happened three months earlier and stayed in the vault. It was recent, meaning Mary had time to get the truth out of her without looking like a complete imbecile.

Second, if she thought back to what had been going on the evening prior, before the emergency with Alice's appendix had snowballed, there were clues to Norah having had this milestone event occur. Her unexpected cruelty, her lack of patience, the way she had lashed out at Alice in the most vindictive way. They'd all assumed she was behaving as such because of the lousy report her teachers had given, but what if it had been something else?

This made Mary think that maybe, just maybe, her daughter _had_ been going to confide in her. But, the argument over her grades and her attitude had skyrocketed and rather than tone it down and admit to her weaknesses and confusion, she'd run away. Brandi and Robyn weren't the only mother-daughter pair that had similarities.

"So, she didn't say one way or the other?" Mary probed for confirmation.

"No, but I still think she must've started or something," she insisted. "She couldn't even talk like a normal person; she was all squirrely and stuff like she was embarrassed. And, she didn't just ask me about… _stuff_ ," that phrase again. "She asked me about what you're supposed to do in gym once swimming starts, if you can get a note or something…"

"Oh, man…"

"And, like, why would I know that? I don't even take PE."

True, Robyn might not know the ins and outs of coaches and whistles in gym class, but she sure knew a hell of a lot more than Mary. What a resource she had been – it made the inspector wish she had plumbed these waters a lot sooner, to hell with what Marshall thought about snooping.

And, intimidating as the entire affair was – not to mention upsetting – it also ignited something in Mary's gut. She wasn't a US Marshal for nothing, in spite of how much had gotten by her in the last couple of months. Knowledge was power, and now that she knew the truth, she could use it to her benefit.

She and Norah might be down, but they weren't out. Not yet. Not by a long shot.

XXX

 **A/N: I don't know if this seems like enough to have been the catalyst for a long of Norah's unhappiness in this story, not that Mark's and Jill's wedding and baby didn't add to it for her. Hopefully, it is plausible!**


	40. Chapter 40

**A/N: Alice on the mend…**

XXX

Thus ensued another sleepless night for Mary. She was beginning to think that she would soon forget what it was like to function as a normal human being that got at least six hours of rest. Her current cycle reminded her of her early WITSEC days, when she'd had to jump out of bed at the sound of the alarm, no extra time to be spared to put on clean clothes or brush her teeth. Except, at that time, she'd been a lot better at obtaining alertness even when she was basically a walking zombie – an old talent she had long since lost. These days, if she didn't get enough sleep, she was little more than a ghost going through the motions.

Marshall, it seemed, was not having the same issue she was – of course, he was not aware of the problems Norah had been experiencing for the last few months. His wife had decided almost immediately to keep the information to herself, especially since, if Robyn was to be believed, Norah hadn't wanted anyone to know of her woes in the first place. But, he was so happy that Alice was on the mend, not to mention his step-daughter's currently bubbly demeanor, that the woman hated to put a damper on such things. He crashed with his upper body sprawled on the end of Alice's bed while she snoozed serenely up above, Mary just trying to get comfortable in one of the chairs, which was to no avail.

Slumber was continually disturbed by her initiatives about just how to approach Norah when the time was right. She couldn't let this go by for long, now that she knew everything, but there had to be a method to her madness. If she botched the entire future conversation, they would be right back where they started. If she did it right, it could blossom entirely new worlds for both mother and daughter. She would never forgive herself if she blew it.

Fortunately – at least for some people – a sizeable distraction arrived on Friday morning, when Mary had long since given up on any semblance of rest. Half dead in her chair, sipping lukewarm, sludgy coffee, she watched Alice wiggle around in her bed, insisting every third word that she was perfectly well and could trick-or-treat after all. Marshall was humoring her politely as sun streamed in the window, showing a cold but gorgeous day outside. Effervescent orange and red leaves, rich and warm, dappled every tree in sight, piles of fallen yellow and brown ones decorating the parking lot. It was a perfect picture of a Halloween morning – crisp and cool, but with no threat of rain or raging winds. Alice was right to be disappointed.

More than that, it could not be denied that she did seem to be doing much better than she had been the day before – the wonders of pain medication combined with a good night's sleep. There was no chance she was going home before Saturday, however, and even less chance of her hitting the sidewalks and ringing doorbells. That didn't stop her from trying.

"Daddy, Norah said she'd bring me the orange and black lights!" she whined, perched on her knees, in a pair of her own pajamas instead of the hospital's billowy gown. Clutching her stuffed bunny from the house, "And what about the ghost sheets and the creepy headstones and _my costume?!_ "

"Norah's at school, sugar," Marshall reminded her, for she had probably lost track of the days, being in the hospital. "It's a Friday. I can only assume she'll pay you a visit tonight and deliver all the accessories, as promised. Right, Mary?"

Startling from her slumped position, the woman took another dreg of her coffee even though it was gagging her, and tried to zero in on what her husband had said.

"Mark said he'd bring her by after dinner," she intoned blandly. "Brandi mentioned something about Robyn and Max tagging along, but Max may want to go out with his friends; I don't know…"

" _Lucky_ ," Alice pouted, referring to her male cousin as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Everybody gets to have Halloween except for _me_. Maybe I should've just gone to hell once my appendix came out; it'd probably be just like this…"

Mary was too busy trying to stay awake to bother correcting her, but Marshall didn't let the slip go by. Many things he would allow to slide, given the circumstances, which was why he wasn't overly stern, but rules were rules.

"Alice…" he murmured seriously. "You know how we feel about that word."

"Why can't I just say what I want?" she protested, sounding remarkably like Norah when she got in a snit. "Even if I get in trouble, I couldn't feel any worse than I already do…"

"Decent logic, I do admit," Marshall proclaimed. "Even so, there is no need to get crass. I have every faith Norah will make good on her word, and then…"

But, before he could finish his sentence, there was the sound of a door creaking on its less-than-well-oiled hinges, announcing the arrival of a guest. The strident squeaking noise shook Mary from her reverie once again, at which point she decided she had better get out of the chair; she wasn't getting any rest anyway.

Unfortunately, when she stood up and adjusted her shirt – the same one Brandi had brought her the day before – she came almost eye-to-eye with the person walking into the room, and it wasn't someone she expected at all. If she'd wanted a wake-up call, she was certainly getting one now.

Jill eased herself into the space – tentatively; Mary would give her credit for being cautious – wearing a smart-looking black suit with an orange shirt underneath her blazer. The bulge she was sporting, evidence that there was a baby growing within was an almost miniscule ridge. Mary once again had the suspicion that Jill's pregnancy would be cute and quirky until the last day, so different from her own, which had made her feel nothing but obese.

The way Jill was done up for the holiday should've brought out the worst kind of disdain in the inspector, but she was a teacher, after all, and it didn't seem important to disparage her any longer. Given everything that had occurred with Alice, her perspective had altered – maybe not as soon as it should have, what with the way she'd slandered both Mark and Jill immediately after the fact. But, she usually reached rationality eventually, even if it was always too late for her to really feel proud about it.

Cropped blonde hair swinging about her shoulders, she offered the room a smile which both Marshall and Alice returned. Alice, in particular, looked overjoyed, risking injuring herself all over again by bouncing on the inclined mattress.

"JILL!" she squealed, holding out her arms for a hug, her father gently pushing her back against her pillows. "Did you come to see me?!"

This was fairly obvious, although Mary did think it was ballsy of the other woman to come back after the way the Marshal had acted the last time she'd shown up. Mark must've told her that the two of them had begun mending fences; otherwise she'd have been foolish to return.

"Well, I thought I would pop in…" she replied, casting somewhat fretful glances toward Mary as she said it. "How are you, Alice? Are you feeling okay?"

The brunette did not immediately tee up a response, but accepted the embrace the teacher gave her, throwing her arms around her back as though she had not seen the woman in years. Mary tried to remember that it wasn't a personal slight, that it was exciting for her daughter to have an unexpected visitor. Holding onto Alice's elation would get her through.

"I have to miss Halloween," the child reported once she had settled herself back under her covers. "It's terrible. While everyone is out getting candy and having fun, I'm going to be stuck here…"

"That's what I heard," Jill stated, putting on a look of sympathy. "And, I think it's too bad. But, how's your stomach?" her eyes traveled to the little girl's belly, wanting an update on her health, not her frustrations. "Does it still hurt?"

"Mmm…sometimes…" she shrugged. "Mommy says I'll feel it when I try to walk, but so far I haven't had to. Someone carries me to the bathroom and everything."

Jill chuckled appreciatively, "I should say so."

And then, at the mention of 'mommy' she must've decided she couldn't ignore the others in the room any longer. Throwing her gaze over her shoulder, hazel eyes begging for approval and not an outburst, she traipsed back into the minefield.

"Hey, Mary," there was a friendly nod and a shaky smile. "I hope you don't mind that I dropped in…"

Mary forced herself to open her mouth, "It's fine," and she tried not to sound so taut when she spoke. "I'm…surprised you aren't at school, though," she was curious, but did her best not to come off accusatory, like Jill was running around town instead of educating second graders.

"Well, I had a doctor's appointment down in obstetrics. I have a substitute this morning, but I'll be back at school this afternoon – I definitely didn't want a sub to have to deal with all the Halloween party chaos," she blathered, giving Mary far more information than she needed, but at least it made sense. "But, since I was here, I thought I would check and see how Alice was doing…"

"It's lovely of you," Marshall finally piped up, perhaps anticipating that Mary would choke out a sarcastic remark. "And, everything went well at the appointment, I trust?"

"Yeah, everything's great…" she persisted. "Thanks for asking. I got a sonogram picture for Mark and everything…"

Her tone chirruped and stumbled around even further at trying to talk about the baby, clearly wondering whether it was a safe topic, but Mary didn't even have an opportunity to act diplomatic. Alice had heard enough to know what a sonogram was, and clearly thought the workings of Jill's uterus were her business.

"Can I see?!"

Jill wasn't shy about agreeing, "Sure…"

Fumbling in her purse, she took out a small envelope, the contents concealed with a tiny gold brad. Jill undid the clasp and reached inside, pulling out a slick, white piece of paper that Mary recognized all-too-clearly an ultrasound photo. It had been a long time since she'd been in possession of one, and she suddenly wondered if any of hers depicting the unborn Norah and Alice were still around. She wasn't typically sentimental about such things, but it was possible Marshall had pocketed them at some point, particularly the ones of Alice. The illustrations of Norah, unfortunately, were likely long gone, what with Mary's original plan to pursue adoption.

But, thoughts of the past were steered out of her head when Jill settled herself on the end of the mattress and held out her own portrait for Alice to have a peek. Paying her stitches no mind, she scooted right up next to the woman, not shy about sharing space at all. Within seconds, she frowned, tilting her head this way and that as though to get a better view.

"I can't tell where it is…" she vocalized curiously, mouth working side-to-side in thought. "It just looks like black with a bunch of dots and streaks and stuff – like a kindergartener painted it without listening to directions and just rubbed their brush all over the place."

Jill chortled, "It is pretty similar to that, you're right." Taking her index finger, Mary watched as she traced an outline, "Do you see this round part here, though? Right there, with the little peak on top…"

"Yeah, kind of…"

"That's the head, and the point is the nose."

Alice squinted, moving her face closer, "Nuh-uh," she grunted disbelievingly. "That can't be the head. Where are the eyes and the ears and stuff?"

"They're there, but you can't see them. Sometimes, they have really fancy sonograms where the baby is three dimensional instead of flat like this…" she wiggled the paper for evidence. "And then, sometimes, you can see eyes and ears and a mouth."

"How can you be sure he has those things if you can't see them?"

"I guess I can't," Jill shrugged with a nervous laugh, as though she hadn't considered the possibility of her child missing vital parts of his body. "But, I like to think the doctors know what they're talking about."

"Can you show me his hands or his feet or anything?" Alice wanted to know, still gazing, enraptured, at the picture like it might come to life at any moment.

"Not really…" the teacher said. "But, this arched part across the middle is the body…"

Though Mary was across the room and could not tell for certain, she guessed Jill was drawing lines on the sonogram to indicate where the baby's torso was lying. And, though she didn't know what the response would be, she was pretty sure she knew what her daughter's next question was, especially if she could see the little one's belly area.

"I see that!" she declared, excited that she had spotted the promised child. "It's there! Look, daddy!"

Before moving on, she snatched the shot from Jill and whirled it around so Marshall could take a gander. Politely, he did so, unable to keep a smile off his face. Mary expected nothing less. It was sappy, but she knew how her husband was about infants. He was as bad as a grandmother when it came to drooling over them.

"Ah, yes…" he breathed approvingly. "Quite a robust little critter, it would seem. Very nice."

"Well, if you can see the stomach and stuff like that…" Alice went on, handing the photo back to its owner. "Can you tell if it's a boy or a girl?"

The inspector was pleased when Jill did not hesitate, which meant she had nothing to hide; she simply took her sonogram depiction and slipped it back into her purse, satisfied that Alice had finished with it. She and Mark had mentioned nothing to Mary about discovering the sex of the baby, and she liked to believe she would've been let in on something like that. For some reason, she anticipated Norah's reaction being more severe if the child were a girl. It would be easier to compare it to herself, for one, and for another, when you considered her relationship with Alice; it was easy to feel tentative about a second female coming into play.

But, Jill had nothing to reveal, merely shook her head.

"I kind of wanted to find out, but Mark wants it to be a surprise, and so I agreed I wouldn't ask," she explained to Alice. "We'll see when it's born."

"An element of mystery," Marshall broke in, using his distinctively corny voice. "I like it."

"Oh, sure you do," Mary guffawed, somewhat surprised at herself for contributing the way she was. "You could barely contain yourself when this one was gonna come along," pointing a finger at Alice. "I was all for waiting, but did you listen? No…"

"I could've held out just as well as anyone," Marshall proclaimed, puffing his chest out while Alice giggled. "So, we knew a few months earlier than planned. It didn't hurt anything. In fact, I would say it helped us to…"

"Yeah-yeah-yeah…" his wife cut him off with a wave of her hand. "You keep telling yourself that. But, for the record, I was on board for hanging on until the last second. Some people have no willpower."

This actually was not meant to be a slight on Jill, and Mary suddenly hoped she wouldn't take it as such – for once. But, when their good-humored byplay came to a halt, a semi-awkward silence fell between them. Intelligently, Jill seemed to decide this was a good time to see herself out, rather than wear out her welcome and ruin a good thing. Standing up, she fixed her pencil skirt so it was hanging properly, and shouldered her purse before throwing each of them a pleasant glance with which to bid them farewell.

"I should probably get going…" she stated in a businesslike way. "I have an errand to run before I head back to school, so I don't want to be late."

Marshall was diplomatic, "It was very kind of you to stop in. Enjoy the festivities."

"Yes, I'll try," she swore with another laugh. Turning to the little girl, "Bye, Alice. Feel better, okay? I know Miss Whitmore misses you at school."

"Will you tell her hi for me?" the brunette requested with a syrupy smile. "Please?"

"Yeah, sure," Jill agreed. "I'll let the kids in your class know how you're doing too, all right?"

"Tell them I have a really gross scar – make it sound cool! The boys will be super jealous!"

The woman couldn't help chuckling once more, but didn't disappoint.

"I'll do that. See you guys later…"

"Bye, Jill!" Alice chirruped with an enthusiastic wave to go along.

In seconds, she had disappeared with only Marshall's benevolence to take with her. Mary didn't know why she didn't just let her go. After all, her civil behavior should've earned her at least a few points; she hadn't snarked or taken pot shots or done anything childish, like she might've a few days ago. And, if Jill was in cahoots with Mark – which everyone knew she was – she would already have a heads up on the fact that they were trying to turn over a new leaf. There was no need to take it a step further.

But, the happiness Jill had brought Alice combined with the way Norah had, at least at one time, considered her to be a sounding board, had Mary leaving Marshall and Alice behind, muttering something about being right back. Of course, the mother should be angry that Jill had held such breathtaking information about Norah – the bras, the bullies – but, for whatever reason, she was not. If recent events had taught her anything, it was that working as a team was the only way they were going to survive the teenage waters. With any luck, Jill would've learned her lesson as well.

She was halfway down the hall before Mary caught up with her and called her name, ensuring that she would stop.

"Jill, hey!"

The other woman turned, although there was no mystery as to who was yelling for her. Immediately, Mary noticed that she looked to be on her guard – like she thought she might get her true whipping now that they were out of earshot of the child.

Petering to a halt and catching her breath, Mary just waited to be acknowledged, hoping to get some kind of read on what Mark's fiancée was thinking.

"Yeah?" she proposed. "What's up?"

What _was_ up? Since she'd bounded in so frantically, she hadn't given much thought to how she would approach this. Would it be best to simply have out with it? Why waste words? Mary had never been one to evade the issue; she had no filter. There was no reason to alter just for Jill.

"I just, uh…" she hadn't felt like she'd run that quickly, and yet she was out of air; maybe it was nerves. Working off what Marshall had already articulated, she continued, "…I meant to…say thanks. Again…" it would be better if he were around to say what she, apparently, could not. "…You know. For coming to see Alice. You know she really likes you."

It was hard to blame Jill for looking perplexed. Mary was rarely so forthright with any kind of compliment. At best, she kept her head down and her mouth shut.

"Well…I really like her too," she finally said. "She's darling. So is Norah."

This was an obligatory remark if ever Mary had heard it, and she admired Jill for giving it a go, but both of them knew the phrasing was a stretch. Norah was a lot of things. But, the inspector didn't think she would even describe _herself_ as darling.

But, rather than fixate on this, she used the segue for what it was. It wasn't likely she would get a better one.

"Yeah…about Norah…"

Again, she could tell that Jill was bracing herself for an avalanche, and it made her feel unexpectedly bad. She really wasn't trying to scare her. It occurred to her that Jill and Mark had probably felt a lot like mincemeat lately; Mary had them for lunch at every opportunity. And, while that worked for witnesses, she was probably going to have to find a more congenial approach with her family no matter how much it killed her.

"I, um…kind of…found out by accident about everything that went down between the two of you not very long ago," this was not, strictly speaking, true – at least not the 'accident' part – but it would have to do. "The bras and everything."

Now Jill looked worried as well as frightened, but the former seemed to be taking over, and it was this that allowed Mary to cut her some slack. It wasn't easy being a step-mother, and it was a job that Mary was eternally grateful she did not have.

"I am so sorry about all of that…" she said, and she sounded like she meant it. "I felt terrible that Norah had to go through that; she was right to blame me…"

"No, she wasn't," Mary couldn't believe she was defending the other woman, but she was. "You just made a mistake – people do that. She ought to know," a scoff.

"But, I should've told you about it…" Jill insisted. "I wanted to – I really thought I should," this was new. "I tried to convince Mark that we should let you in on it, but he wore me down; he said it would just be worse for everyone if we opened everything up again, that Norah had enough problems and that she was probably over it…"

"I don't know if she was then, but hopefully she is now…"

"But, you're her mom," it was strangely touching, how badly she wanted to make her case to Mary. "I mean, if I found out my daughter had-had something like this happening, that some other woman had bought her a bra without consulting me…"

"To be fair, I'm not the most approachable person in that area…"

"I don't know what I was thinking," she interrupted with a tiny cringe, like she was mentally kicking herself for her past transgressions. "Well, I do, actually, but it's not an excuse. I wanted her to like me, which is _so_ juvenile that it's sad, but it's the truth. I was shocked when she came to me, and I didn't want to let her down…"

"Been there…"

"For all the good it did me," there was something concluding in her tone now, and she looked straight at Mary with a determined glint in her eye. "Because, I _did_ let her down. I bought her the wrong size, and I've been messing up ever since."

Self pity wasn't something Mary responded to very well, but she wasn't sure defaming herself so that the inspector would praise her was really what Jill was doing. Mary was smart enough to know that Jill was not evil, that she had not swept into their lives on a mission to pull Mark from his old life and enter into a completely new one. She just wanted to fit somewhere and, much as it pained her to relate to someone, Mary could identify with that. Since the age of seven, she had searched for the one place where _she_ belonged, and she'd been nearly forty before she'd found it.

If Norah had to deal, then Mary could too, and even if she wasn't going to be Jill's best buddy, she could at least be cordial. Once upon a time, they had been. A few weeks of turmoil didn't mean that they couldn't get back on track.

"Well, it could be that I just don't get out much…" the taller of the two worked off the teacher's last statement. "But, I figure that you aren't _really_ a parent until you royally screw up. You'll need the practice when it comes to your own kid."

"At sticking my foot in my mouth?" Jill sounded doubtful, but she laughed lightly.

"At dealing with mistakes," Mary corrected. "You think I haven't made some? And Mark? God, we should start making a list – minor wrongdoings at the top, most punishable offenses at the bottom," she forecasted. "I can promise you, in his top five would be when Norah was three, he let her push the shopping cart at the grocery store, and she took off at full speed down the liquor aisle…"

"Really?"

" _And_ crashed into the shelves and sent bottles of wine rolling all over the linoleum. They had to page me over the loudspeaker."

Now Jill was laughing for real, either at the image of her husband-to-be standing, dimwitted and sheepish, next to his toddler daughter as she chased beer and champagne, or at the thought of Mary's face when she discovered the commotion. Mary wasn't sure how much her embarrassing tale really helped, but at least it broke the ice.

"Anyway…" she shrugged. "You get used to being crap at certain things – you learn to live with it. The only one who doesn't flub when it comes to the kids is Marshall, but I've had to grudgingly accept that he's not really human when it comes to his talents."

Jill bit on her lip, no doubt at witnessing the loyalty in Mary's comment that she had not entirely planned on allowing to escape. But, before they could swap any more war stories, the inspector's phone began to buzz in her back pocket. This was as good of a distracter as any – after all, she wasn't looking to hug and make up, just put things on a more neutral ground. It was safe to assume she had done that. If Marshall had been there, he'd have been proud of her maturity.

"I'll let you get that…" Jill knew when to stop at a good time. "I hope Alice is able to go home tomorrow. Mark and I can keep Norah again tonight if you want."

"Yeah…" the other replied absently, trying to fish the cell out without dropping it. "That sounds good. But, if one of you could drop her by once you've eaten dinner, she promised Alice she'd bring her something for Halloween…"

"Oh, of course…" she waggled her fingers, as she was likely already in the loop where this was concerned. "We have Knox too, by the way – Mark went and picked him up last night."

"Thanks…" Mary hadn't even thought of this, and had been counting on Marshall to touch base with Stan about looking in on the canine; she was glad he was getting fed with Norah around to keep him company. "See you later…"

"Bye…"

The educator departed down the hall, waving over her shoulder, with the Marshal still trying to get a grip on her phone. She had yet to look at the caller ID, as she was too absorbed in saying a proper goodbye, and feeling grateful that they had not left things on an overly sentimental note. For as much as Mary knew that she and Jill making amends was beneficial, she'd had no desire to join hands and sing, "Kumbaya." That was hardly her style, and she was happier that their words had been casual.

Unfortunately, her somewhat buoyant attitude had a pin put in it when she finally saw the name staring back at her on her lighted screen. She wanted to hit herself almost immediately for having allowed her mind to wander over the last few days, even in light of Alice's appendicitis. Once upon a time, she'd been able to juggle a hundred different things between both work and family, and now it seemed that multi-tasking was a thing of the past.

Still, there was no avoiding it now, and she forced herself to answer and handle whatever was going to come.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mary," Lauren's voice was as even and aloof as ever, no emotion detectable one way or the other.

"Hey…" they'd covered that, she knew, but she had to stall somehow so that she did not appear as remiss as she'd been. "I guess it's Friday already…"

"Yeah," the half-sister countered without any indication that she understood or responded to the sarcasm. "I said I would call when I made it into town, and I got here last night. I'm staying in a motel not too far from where you live. Are you still in the same house?"

This seemed an odd time to ask this, but it wasn't as if Mary and Lauren kept up with one another. Lauren had known she was still in Albuquerque, and that was good enough for both of them.

"Yeah, I am…" Mary said. "But, if you wanted to meet today, it's really not the best time…"

"It doesn't have to be today – I'm staying through Sunday," she explained. "And, I figured, with you having little kids, that Halloween wasn't great for a get together."

Mary wanted to say that her kids were not that little, at least not both of them, but she knew it didn't matter, and it would only be served as a method to put off the inevitable a little longer. Truthfully, she wasn't really against seeing Lauren – after all, she had agreed in the first place – but she had completely forgotten she was coming, and she hated when her guard was down. She berated people all the time – usually witnesses – for failing to show up on time or recall appointments. Marshall would tell her that she had a valid excuse on this front, but she still didn't like it. Childish as it was, she still wanted to feel like the most responsible, upstanding daughter in her mangled, mish-mash family.

"I might be able to do something late tomorrow, I guess – or Sunday, depending on what time you wanted to leave…"

"I know your job is kind of unpredictable."

"Well, yeah, but it's not really that…"

And then, deciding that it was silly to continue on with the charade, that Lauren was likely to find out the truth anyway, she gave up the ghost.

"My youngest, Alice, had her appendix taken out yesterday morning, and she's still in the hospital."

"Oh…" Lauren respired, not with an overload of sympathy, but with an air of surprise. "I didn't know that…"

"Well, no, you wouldn't…"

"She's okay, then?"

"Yeah, she's fine; she's supposed to go home tomorrow," she reported. "You think I could call you then or later today before I commit to anything?"

"Sure…" James' other daughter sounded understanding enough, but like her long-lost sibling, she didn't give up easily, no matter what the misfortune. "I really would like to see you, though. Are you sure it's going to work out?"

"I…probably…" Mary stammered. "I'll let you know."

And, left wondering just what else this Halloween weekend might have in store for her, Mary hung up, trying to escape while her good mood was even still partially intact.

XXX

 **A/N: Lauren is still out there – and on her way!**


	41. Chapter 41

**A/N: New reviews – how lovely! Lots of sappiness ahead…**

XXX

By that evening, Mary felt like she had stepped into a funhouse, mirrors and all, and her reflection could not be more distorted. Every panel she glanced into showed a different problem, and no matter how she had tried to alleviate a few of them, more seemed to spring out of the ground without warning – like weeds in a blooming flower patch. She had taken care of Jill and Mark, at least as much as she could right now, but the fact remained that there was still far too much to wangle when it came to her whirlwind life.

Alice's recovery, which really should've been at the top of her list, was slowly getting pushed to the back of her radar. According to the doctors, she would be fit to return home the next day, and aside from a lot of pain in her abdominal region, she would make a full recovery. Her boisterous spirits and top-notch whining about wanting to leave the hospital had to mean she was feeling better.

But, there was still the matter of Norah to deal with, which was what was causing Mary so many sleepless nights. If she didn't get some real rest soon, she was going to lose her mind, and she suspected Marshall was going to suggest she hit the road for home that night, even if she protested about staying with Alice. How to advance on Norah and her ongoing anguish was weighing heavily and, whatever she had said to Jill, this was not something she could botch. It was essential she have the right conversation, or there would be hell to pay.

When you added in Lauren's arrival to the entire mess, it was a wonder Mary was even functioning. The fact that she was keeping a lot of her demons from Marshall probably didn't help. He knew about Lauren, but nothing of Norah's plights as detailed by Robyn, and she vowed to herself that no matter how desperate she got for his advice, she would not broach the subject. She could keep a secret, and she intended to prove it, not just to Norah, but to herself.

And yet, whether she wanted it that way or not, there was no room for her to continue dwelling once nighttime had settled outside Alice's hospital window. Granted, it wasn't the Halloween twilight you might experience if you were running through the neighborhood with only the streetlamps and porch lights to show you the way. Spinning flashes of red and blue continually swept the panes from ambulances tearing into the emergency ward in the parking lot below, which was so well lit you could see every parked car and all the ones rushing along on the freeway in the distance.

But, true to her word, Norah had arrived promising costumes and celebration, not that her mother or her step-father had seen her. Brandi came frolicking in with shopping bags full of goodies, which she immediately used to decorate the room with Marshall's help, Mary sitting sourly nearby. They draped orange and black lights along the window and on the shelf above Alice's bed, popping up the fake tombstones from Brandi's front lawn in various spots on the floor. Ancient, cut-up bed sheets had been trimmed to look like ghosts and were thumb-tacked to available wall surfaces. The impressive pumpkin that Marshall had so expertly carved sat at the end of Alice's bed on her dinner tray, a candle lit and burning in its center so the lopsided Jack O-Lantern face leered at the little girl.

Delighted as she was at all the festoons and ornamentations, it seemed Halloween was not truly complete without her guaranteed costume. Even Marshall beaming from ear-to-ear, hopping around and sprinkling Mary's head in orange tinsel could not distract her from the main event. Eventually, as any child was known to do, she grew so impatient she could not keep herself from begging any longer.

"Brandi, where is Norah?" she pleaded as her aunt adjusted the bulbs on the lights to make sure they were at their brightest. "She said she'd get me a costume! What is it?! I know that you know!"

"I was sworn to secrecy, honey," the woman insisted, finger on her lips, which was difficult to make out since the main lights had been extinguished in favor of the holiday-themed illumination. "But, they should be in any time; I didn't think it would take them so long to change…"

As she peered in the direction of the door, it seemed she had let slip more than she'd planned and even Mary, in her stupor, picked up on it.

"Them?" she questioned from her permanent residence in the chair. "Who's 'them?'"

"Did I say 'them…?'" she shot a sneaky glance in Alice's direction, the worst actress Mary had ever seen.

Still, her niece bought it, "Yes! Yes! You said, 'them!'" she squealed, bouncing up and down on the mattress, in great danger of popping a stitch of two. "It isn't just Norah?!"

"Who are we talking about?" Mary demanded, sitting up a little straighter while Marshall continued to look impish, using the shadows the pumpkin candle was creating to make bunny ears on the wall. Slapping his hand, his wife nagged him, "Cut it out. What are you, in second grade?"

"Oh, get into the spirit of things," was his calm remark, no doubt irritated with her inability to shirk her scorn for the holiday. "It won't kill you."

"Brandi, who else is here?" Alice wanted to know, ignoring her parents completely. "Is it Robyn?"

Mary couldn't imagine who else it would be, not if her sister had agreed to come along and play clown for this circus. But, evidently, even the diva herself wasn't the only one who had tagged along for the ride.

"Maybe…" she evaded, though it was clear the cat was out of the bag. "Max might've decided he couldn't miss out either…"

"But, where are they?" And, before Brandi could come up with another goofy rationalization, Alice recalled something else, "And you said it was taking them a long time to change! Are they dressing up too?! What are they?!"

Her excitement and anticipation was off the charts – so much so that Mary thought the event itself would be less than thrilling when it finally arrived. Sometimes the build-up was worth more than the episode. But, even so, this entire ordeal was getting to be a little too kitschy for her – regardless of what Marshall said about her bad attitude. Surprises were wasted on Mary and Brandi, of all people, should know that the suspense would only annoy her.

"Norah isn't dressing up," she stated without thinking about perhaps dashing Alice's hopes. "She hates that stuff. I couldn't even get her to wear a dress for five minutes at my wedding for Christ sakes, and she was six years old."

"I didn't say anything," Brandi reminded them all, but the devious look on her face was enough to make the older Shannon want to slap it off. "But, if you ask me, getting dolled up for something like that is not exactly the same as Halloween."

"Whatever. But, I still think that…"

Her sentence was chopped in two when the door opened at last, eliciting a clichéd and noisy gasp from Alice, who clapped her hands over her mouth and practically trembled as she waited to see who would emerge from the shadows. In this moment, it wasn't a figurative expression either, for the room was as dark as it could be with the curtains drawn, the lights out, and only the spooky orbs glowing to create the All Hallow's Eve atmosphere.

Mary was almost afraid to look, although she couldn't have said why. She knew she should take Marshall's advice as lose her contempt, especially when her little girl could not have been more overjoyed. If anything, the fact that Norah had agreed to this crazy cartoon was paramount in and of itself. When she finally talked to her about all the goings on at school, she would have to ask where the personality transplant had come from. Never in her life had she been so kind to Alice.

Within seconds of the first grader's wheeze of eagerness, a deep throated sound came from the entrance to the room, none of them able to make out the figures due to the tiny alcove that resided just inside the door. The noises grew the longer they waited, and at first Mary assumed it was one of the kids attempting to be scary and failing miserably – the sound resembled a baritone cackle modeled after a villain in a bad animated movie.

But, when the inspector listened a little harder, she realized that it wasn't a booming, intimidating chortle at all, but the same word repeated over and over.

"Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho…!"

It could not be what she thought it was, and yet when she made out the tinkle of sleigh bells, she knew there could be no other culprit. Alice got there before she did, wrinkling her nose in bamboozled enchantment.

"Santa Claus?!"

The response didn't change, "Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho…!"

"Jesus…" Mary mumbled, hand over her eyes.

"That's not holiday language," Marshall reminded her with a hint of humor and a nudge of her shoulder.

"Dasher! Dancer! Francer! Erm, uh…I mean…"

There was a giggle that did not belong to Mary's child, but one she recognized nonetheless.

"Comet – Vomit! Cupid – Stupid!"

Alice began to howl with laughter, clutching her belly and cringing slightly at the same time, but it didn't abate her giggles at all. Mary deduced without much consideration that the person behind this – which most definitely had to be her teenager – was now making mistakes on purpose due to the audience response.

"Merry Halloween to all! And, to all…!"

Footsteps followed when the phrase went uncompleted and, all decked out in costumes of the strangest kind, three people ran in, their flushed faces highlighted in the radiance from the eerie Jack O-Lantern. The trio held up their arms as though they had prepared a play, but the personas were dropped almost at once to make way for something more informal. Whatever they had planned, they were now laughing too zealously to bother.

"Hi, Alice!"

"Hey, Alice!"

"I missed you, Alice!"

The girl in question did not answer, merely continued to gawk and giggle without restraint, her red face visible even in the faint light. Brandi, too, looked amazed at the group in front of her; even though Mary knew she had to have been in on this scheme. Marshall, without hesitation, was clearly charmed; the boyish bliss was written all over his angular face. Mary, too, was some combination of those things, but mostly she just sat with her mouth open and let the children take care of explanations.

"What do you think?" the Santa Claus, for that was indeed what had appeared, drew up and down the red suit, complete with beard and hat with pom-pom. "Is this unique enough?"

Alice had guesses to share first, once she got over her sniggers.

"Norah, is that you?"

"No!" the girl bellowed in a deep voice. "I'm Jolly Old Saint Nick!" But, when her cousins almost doubled over at her impression, she returned to her normal tone, "Yeah, it's me. Think I got the fat right?" she patted her middle, which was no doubt stuffed with a pillow.

"No more chocolate for _her_!" the other female chimed in, which had to be Robyn; she threw a handful of plastic eggs at her cousin from where they had been sitting in a brown wicker basket. "No bunny is visiting her house this year!"

It had taken Mary a moment, still numb from shock at the corniness as well as the thoughtfulness, to tell what her niece was dressed as, but the visual clunked it into place. Fuzzy white footie pajamas and a headpiece with long ears that stuck up, hair tied off in two curly pigtails, a black nose and whiskers painted on her face.

"I'm supposed to be the Easter bunny," she announced, looking herself up and down. "We couldn't find an actual rabbit costume – everybody was sold out – but, mom got this at some store. Can you believe they make these for adults?" she guffawed. "Talk about scary."

"Did you bring candy?" Alice wanted to know, which earned her a shower of eggs on her bed; she ducked as though being hit with sniper fire, but the smile never left her face.

Marshall, hand on his chin, eyed the boy between the two middle schoolers, who seemed unusually bouncy and hyperactive, especially when you considered his more subdued nature. Dressed head-to-toe in bright, emerald green – sweatpants and a long sleeve T-shirt – he also wore a funny felt hat that looked as though it had come out of the bottom of a toy box. It, too, was green, and resembled a magician's top hat, except it had a yellow felt square glued in the center.

"And, Max?" the man finally inquired, with his wife nearby trying to determine just what holiday figure he was depicting. "Your costume is, indeed, captivating but, I am at a bit of a loss as to…"

"Oh, come on!" Brandi interrupted derisively, taking up for her son. "Surely you know what he is!"

"He's an imp!" Robyn squealed, poking fun the instant she saw the opportunity. "A midget!"

"A munchkin!" Norah piped up. "They wear matching clothes, don't they?"

"Like those ones in, 'The Wizard of Oz?'" Alice wanted to know, getting in on the action.

"Earth Day!" Marshall guessed, although at this point Mary knew he was only kidding around.

Robyn let out a howl of laughter, "Yeah, let's get him a globe to carry around; then he'd be really cool…"

But, Max had-had enough, "I'm a leprechaun!" he bellowed, and Mary expected him to appear downhearted due to everyone getting jabs on his outfit, but speaking up only seemed to spur him on, grinning cheek-to-cheek. "You know! Like the guy on the Lucky Charms box!"

"No-no-no-no-no…" Marshall wagged his head, mock-confused. "That cannot be, because leprechauns are tiny – why, they could fit in your pocket. You, my boy, are far too tall…"

Max was undeterred, and when he hollered again, Mary was taken aback by just how different his voice sounded when he really used it. She was so accustomed to him tiptoeing around and waiting for the dust to settle, never speaking much above a whisper if he could avoid it. But, now, she realized that the true character of his vocal chords was raspy and bold – not unlike Brandi's.

"Too bad!" he thrust his face close to his uncle's, beaming as broadly as his cousins and sister and all the merriment. "Maybe I'm the _head_ leprechaun and I stomp on all the others and that's what makes them small! See my shamrocks?" he pulled a handful of clovers out of his pocket and waved them around. "I'm for Saint Patrick's Day!"

"Then you should've brought some beer," Mary muttered, and she was convinced Brandi heard her, because she giggled.

"That is quite a job title you claim to have," Marshall continued, just as baffled as his partner at the change that had come over their nephew. "But, I imagine no sane human being ever dared argue with little green men…"

"We should've made him your elf," Robyn hissed in Norah's ear. "That would've worked just as well…"

But, Max whipped right around and faced his big sister bravely, "You couldn't _make_ me be anything!" he declared, more joyous about his daring than shaking in his boots. "I _wanted_ to be a leprechaun – I didn't do it because _you_ told me to!"

"Well, since when do you know how to think for yourself?" Robyn retorted snootily, which made her look rather amusing due to her ears and childish pajamas.

"You know if you guys keep fighting, all you're getting is coal in your stocking…" Norah played her part to a T.

"I could just _steal_ the presents!" Max decided on the spot. "Leprechauns are good at that!"

"You can move to Ireland if you're such an expert on them!" Robyn shot back.

He just laughed and tossed his whole cache of shamrocks into her face, which caused her to wrinkle her painted nose and swat them to the floor. No doubt she was annoyed that he was stealing her thunder and performance with his unexpectedly intrepid ways, but Mary was sure she would get over it – she wasn't five anymore, after all.

Alice seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the show, watching on her knees like it was a one act play her family was putting on, though it seemed none of it was really going according to plan. Nonetheless, it was her that was going to pull Robyn out of arguing with her brother and back into stage director mode.

"If Norah is Santa and Robyn is the Easter bunny and Max is a leprechaun, then who do I get to be?!"

For the first time since everything had unfolded, Mary chanced a glance at her husband, proving she had been watching the whole thing in spite of her condescending looks and comments. Surely the three of them had not neglected Alice, for whom this evening was supposed to be about, just to play dress up all by themselves?

Marshall, too, was looking slightly nervous, but unlike Mary, he wasn't going to assume the worst just yet. He was made of stronger and more optimistic stuff than that.

"A turkey?" the man put out there, likely thinking of Thanksgiving.

Alice was not a fan, "No way! Turkeys are ugly!"

"It's not a turkey," Robyn promised her.

"Maybe cupid," he offered up again. "Although, I would probably be a bit fearful of a bow and arrow in the hands of any of you kooks…"

"Gross – it's not cupid," Norah informed him, disgusted. "Who likes a fat little Valentine baby that wears nothing but a diaper?"

At this, Mary had to stifle a laugh. It was nice to share things with your daughter sometimes, especially when they were harmless and brought back memories. She, too, had always hated cupid and his rain shower of hearts that decorated every department and grocery store in February.

"Well, I can't think of any particularly important symbols representing Labor Day or even the Fourth of July," the chief pointed out, obviously stumped. "So, you three, what is left for my sugar to portray?"

There was nothing accusatory in his tone, but he was definitely serious and he certainly didn't want Alice to be disappointed. As the kids exchanged looks, Mary wracked her brain too, but fortunately the trio was not like most adults. They didn't beat around the bush or try to figure out the most eloquent way to broach a subject, even if it was awkward. They had out with it and accepted whatever result came. Norah, of course, had always been blunt, Robyn too frenzied to keep anything to herself, and Max had probably never had a secret a day in his life. He'd take his cue from the girls.

"We thought you could be the tooth fairy," Norah finally said, stepping forward in her absurd crimson get-up, pulling the cotton-ball beard down from around her mouth so she could be heard. "Sound good?"

From the corner, Brandi dug into a grocery sack and pulled out a pair of sparkly wings that had once gone with a princess costume Robyn had owned, along with a pink taffeta skirt plucked from their many ballerina tutus. Before Mary could make out the rest, she heard Alice's timbre again – not let down, but curious about the connection.

"The tooth fairy isn't from a holiday, though," she said, sounding slightly lost. "I'm not gonna be like you guys if I'm not from a holiday."

Stunning the mother very nearly out of her mind, Norah did not make a single mean-spirited remark about how Alice was basically a different species from them and didn't need to dress the same as they did. Just a few days before, she'd do anything to leave her out and hurt her feelings. And now, she was going out of her way to include her, to make sure she felt wanted. It was an alteration of the strangest kind, but one Mary deeply welcomed.

"We actually weren't trying to just be holiday people…" she explained, leaning onto the end of the bed to speak to her sister directly. "It just kind of worked out that Robyn and Max and I are from Christmas and Easter and stuff…"

"And Saint Patrick's Day!" Max reminded them, which caused Robyn to aim a noisy, 'shh' in his direction.

"We were being people – or things, or whatever – that you have to believe in. Things that not everybody thinks are real," the thirteen-year-old went on as though there had been no interruption. "Get it?"

"Yeah…" Alice replied with a small smile. "But, you don't think they're real, do you?" she looked skeptically at her big sister. "You don't think there's a Santa anymore, and you don't even have any baby teeth left…"

Norah shrugged, "Just because he doesn't bring _me_ presents, doesn't mean there isn't a Santa," she figured, knowing full well the first grader still had complete faith in the man in the puffy red suit. "And, hey, the teeth have to go somewhere. Plus, if you think leprechauns aren't out there hopping around picking people's pockets and stuff, then you tell me how you keep losing all those pennies."

Alice was notorious for misplacing change she had found on the sidewalk or some other dirty place, but whether or not she was sold on Norah's brand of storytelling remained to be seen. It didn't really matter, however, because she was clearly too pleased with all the hoopla on her behalf to bother with specifics.

Besides, anytime glitter and sparkles were brought out of the closet, you couldn't keep her away, and Brandi was right in the middle of unveiling the rest of the costume. It included a T-shirt that someone had drawn a tooth on with pink permanent marker as well as an old tiara of Robyn's that was cracked and chipped in a few places, but still workable.

"You want to put it on, sweetie?" the aunt proposed. "You know it has to be better than that scratchy bag you've been wearing for the past few days," meaning the hospital gown.

"Put it on, Alice!" Max encouraged, unable to wind down. "Did you know I drew the tooth?"

"Really?" Mary turned her head to address him directly, more grown up than ever without his glasses despite the leprechaun outfit. "I didn't know you were an artist…"

"Teeth aren't very hard to draw."

"Yeah, and Robyn would've rushed," Norah proclaimed without preamble.

"No, I wouldn't have!"

"You do not exactly have a gift for patience, honey," Brandi said to put an end to things. "But, it's not important. The important thing is that Alice has something to wear, which is what she wanted."

"Then, get in it, why don't you?" Norah echoed Max's sentiments and prodded her forward. "Hurry up!"

Without further ado, she crawled all the way up the bed and grabbed her sister under the armpits, causing an ear-splitting shriek to erupt and her limbs to go straight in the air. It didn't take Robyn and Max long to join in the fun, ambushing their cousin on either side of the bed to take the gown off by force. Alice squealed and screeched like she was being murdered, but each yelp was peppered with laughs so breathless it was a wonder she was taking in any air at all.

"Guys, come on…be careful…" Mary cautioned, unable to take off her protective hat for a moment. "Her stitches will burst for Christ sakes…"

"They're not hurting her," Marshall whispered, slithering closer to her and immediately looping his arm around her waist. "Relax, all right?"

"I'm not good at relaxing."

"Yes, I know, and I forgive it because you're good at so many other things."

"Don't be cute."

"Well, if we're talking about things people are _good_ at…"

It was odd to think they were having their conversation in the midst of the group hug going on, that they could still be covert and sneaky, that Mary could maintain her usual morose guise when nothing but elation shimmered around them. It was so bright that it was nearly tangible; you could touch it as it shone in the Halloween darkness. Slivers of the kids' faces were caught in the shadows made by the eye and mouth holes in the pumpkin, and they were all painted in rippling content and solid, unrestrained effort. It made such a difference when they – _all_ of them – tried a little harder.

When Norah worked at choosing her words a little more carefully and using that split second afforded to her to think of someone other than herself. When Robyn acted a little more like a kid and a little less like a miniature adult only pointed toward the future. When Alice shrugged off the need for attention and pampering and allowed herself to roam free, to clinch the unexpected. And even Max, when he forgot how to be timid and learned how to be courageous, how to be heard. It did them all a world of good.

"Why do you think they did this?" Mary queried of Marshall, her mind with him but her eyes on Alice as Robyn slipped the tooth shirt over her bare chest, gown long gone.

"Does it matter why?"

To Marshall, it wouldn't. To his wife, it did.

"I just want to know. A couple of days ago, they were completely different people. Where does this come from?"

"Well, I will tell you that I don't really care where it came from," Marshall began, transferring his hand to her shoulder and rubbing it gently, also keeping his eyes fixed on the display in front of them. "But, I will say that a scare like we had with Alice might've put things into perspective for them. They're young, but they can understand the concept of not taking anything for granted."

"Do you really think that's it?"

"If you come up with something more plausible, then it would be an honor to hear it," only from Marshall would such a thing not sound pompous. "But, I think overanalyzing is a mistake. Just enjoy it. You can let yourself be happy if you try."

This hit Mary like a jolt of lightning, as it took her back to her discussion with Lia. She didn't know how to allow herself to loosen up and enjoy the here and now, even when she knew the moments were few and far between – as easy to lose as sand through an hourglass. Norah's problems and her secrets were still wedged at the front of her mind, and it was so hard to push them back.

But, when she thought about Marshall's phrasing – _try_ – she knew there was nothing for it but to do as he was suggesting. Hadn't she just realized the magnitude and depth of change in the kids when they put on their smiles and made an effort for the greater good? Couldn't she do the same?

When she didn't answer, merely became lost in thought, he gave her another nudge, this one with a rougher compress of her shoulder.

"You can't tell me it's not nice to see _them_ this happy."

And, there was no denying he was right. Was there ever?

"You better put the skirt on yourself…"

"Wow, your scar is huge!"

"Here Alice, I fixed the wings so they won't fall down…"

"Can I have some more of your eggs?"

"I brought chocolate coins!"

"Yeah, and I have a stocking! I put all the crap they gave me at school inside it for you to keep."

"Really?!"

"Yeah, there are some pencils and erasers and some stickers, this really lame joke book, fake glasses, an eye patch, and a ton of candy; I swear, these teachers think we're like, three years old…"

"And I get all of it?!"

"Well, I sure don't want it."

"I made you a wand, Alice. It's not very good, but it has this cool star on the end…"

"I like it!"

"Don't forget your tiara…"

"Hey, mom! Look!"

"Daddy, look at me!"

"See?! Isn't she _gaw-juss?_ "

All the trumpeting for them to lay eyes on the masterpiece could not be ignored, and so Mary left Marshall and his tender movements to gaze at the quad before her on the bed – all in one piece, no bleeding sutures or tears to be had.

Brandi, of course, was the only one who appeared like she might get weepy, but Mary was hardly fixated on her. Alice, with her mouth jammed full of chocolate, could not have been more in heaven had she been wearing her underwear. The consideration and pure love she had received from her cousins and sister was enough to sustain her through next Halloween, at which point going out and trick-or-treating would pale in comparison.

Blinking dazedly into their cheerful, rosy faces, Mary knew that, whatever their issues, whatever their setbacks, this was who they were at their core. Their parents might've made their share of mistakes in raising them, just as the inspector had told Jill that afternoon, but knowing that such kindness resided deep down in their hearts was enough to make the woman grin uncertainly and think that she had to be doing something right.

They were not Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, a leprechaun, and the tooth fairy, whatever Norah's claims. They weren't ideas that existed only in fantasy or, in their case, the future – when middle school and bullies and bad grades could be left behind, for adulthood too hazy to see yet. Who they were now was as real as who they'd be in ten years. Norah and her wit, Robyn and her generosity, Max and his sweetness, Alice and her flair. It made Mary wonder just what Mark's child would add to the group when he or she finally arrived because, like it or not, ready or not, the little one was destined to become one of the gang.

But, for now, the blonde could not have been more satisfied with the way they were, and preserving their glee suddenly seemed too vital to pass by.

"Cozy up, you hear?" she barked in her best Marshal voice, lest they know she was growing gushy. "Paste on a smile or two; you all just look too ridiculous in all that gear for me not to get some blackmail…"

To many groans and a few resigned sighs as Mary pulled out her phone, the three older children gathered around Alice, mindful of her wounds, and put their heads together. Scrolling to the camera button, the woman made sure all four cheeky faces fit in the frame, suddenly feeling a lot like Jinx must've when she had filmed them all those years ago.

"Say, 'happy Halloween!'" Brandi chorused once she was sure her sister was ready.

"Happy Halloween!"

And, with a single tap of her finger, Mary knew this picture would be on her desk at the Sunshine Building by Monday morning.

XXX

 **A/N: After all that buildup, there's Alice's Halloween! :)**


	42. Chapter 42

**A/N : I don't know if all the buildup to this chapter will be worth it, but I did what I could, even if I made it way too long…**

XXX

In spite of all the Halloween entertainment, once the adults were able to herd the children out of Alice's room, Marshall insisted that Mary go home along with them. It seemed her predictions had been correct; he had been noticing she wasn't getting any sleep, even if she wouldn't tell him why. He probably figured it was just worry and stress over Alice and, even if he didn't know about the bras and possible puberty, he did know about Norah's lackluster performance at school, which could reasonably be another reason she wasn't able to crash.

She fought him on it, but not as vehemently as she might have usually. She would have the house all to herself, as Norah was going back to Mark's, and it would be far too late to expect any straggling trick-or-treaters. Even Knox would not be there to whimper at five that he was hungry or needed to go out. It might feel a little empty, especially without Marshall to sleep beside her, but she was going to be lucky to sleep at all. If nothing else, they needed someone at home to clean up and prep the place for Alice's return. What that would entail, Mary didn't know, but there were enough reasons to leave her husband at the hospital, and she capitalized on them.

Her rest that night was slightly sporadic, but she still got more of it than she had in the past few days. She woke every few hours; more from thinking she heard noises than from worry. She knew it was nothing, that she just wasn't used to being the only one in the house. Each time, she was able to slip back under fairly easily, but when her feet grew frosty even beneath the covers and she had to pull the blankets up to her chin, she knew a cold front must be moving through outside. It seemed winter had waited just long enough to get through Halloween before blowing into Albuquerque and settling them with frost until March.

When she got up on Saturday morning, the entire house was frigid; she didn't want to leave her bed, but she knew she wasn't going to get anymore sleep. The hardwood floors were glacial against her bare feet and she spent several icy minutes digging in her closet for her moccasin slippers. Where was Marshall and his chivalry when you needed him? He'd have gotten whatever clothes she needed and turned up the heat before she'd ever left the room if he were home. As it was, she had to fling through her hangers by herself to find a sweatshirt, and the best she could come up with was an old grey jacket that zipped up the middle, which she put on over her T-shirt.

It was when she fiddling with the thermostat by the dresser, blowing on her hands to keep them warm, that she heard what was definitely not an imagined sound out in the living room. Her whole body tensed and her hands itched to reach down to her ankle – where her gun would be. It was her system's response to something being off, and she knew her instincts didn't lie. For a split second, she considered tiptoeing back to her closet and retrieving the glock in the lock box on the top shelf. But, she held off. It was more likely than not that if someone had entered her house without permission, she could overpower them without a problem. If not, she was resourceful and could use any number of items to beat them senseless. Best to leave as little bloodshed as possible.

Carefully, quietly, she eased open her door without a sound and slipped through the small crack she'd made, inching stealthily along the wall toward the living room. All the lights were out, and the front window provided no illumination. It was a chilly, grey day, and she wouldn't be surprised if it rained later. Just by using her eyes, she could see that wherever the din was coming from, it had moved – maybe something was crawling around on the roof or up in the eves, such as a squirrel or rat. Yuck.

At the top of the hall, her heart started to pound. There was something moving in the kitchen and, whether an animal or a burglar, it made Mary want to run back to the bedroom and grab that gun after all. Nonetheless, she stayed put, listening for more clues, and nearly jumped out of her skin when the light over the sink snapped on. No critter had come into her home uninvited. It was a person, and a gutsy one at that.

If they were dumb enough to come in and make so much noise, maybe they would be dumb enough not to notice if she peeked around the corner. Slowly, she allowed her head to roam around the wall, and what she saw made her want to shout and faint with relief at the same time. It wasn't a robber or a rapist. It was Norah, and she had Knox on a leash beside her who was, ironically, making much less noise than she was minus the clicking of his nails on the linoleum.

Now, Mary had nothing to lose. She took great, quiet strides across the floor, shamelessly sneaking up on her daughter, but she really did not think finally speaking would cause her to fly into such a tizzy.

"What are you doing here?!"

Norah screamed, dropping Knox's leash, and he began to bark furiously at the strident noise. When she turned all the way around and saw it was only her mother, she got a grip on herself, a hand on her chest and breathing hard. She looked pissed, although Mary knew _she_ was the one who was warranted anger. Her child had plenty of questions to answer, starting with why she was skulking around the house at seven in the morning when she was supposed to be at Mark's.

"What are _you_ doing here?!" she bellowed, repeating her mother.

"I live here!"

"Well, so do I!"

"You are supposed to be with your dad!"

"And, _you're_ supposed to be at the hospital!"

"Is that an excuse?"

"No!" she spat, one hand on her hip. "Dad had some client to meet really early this morning out in some other town – I don't know which one. I asked if he would bring me back here before he left…"

"Like hell he did," Mary scoffed, a mirror image of her daughter with one palm anchored on her upper leg. "Why didn't he call me, then?"

"He said he was going to, but he just got your voicemail, and he thought you were gonna be at the hospital," she rationalized, calming down slightly but still ready to defend herself if need be. "It's not like someone needs to be here with me. I can take care of myself."

Mary was certainly accustomed to that phrase and, much as she wanted to pummel her child for scaring her so profusely, the story did seem to be matching up. Mark didn't live that far away, and the blonde had left her phone behind when she'd gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom and sift for warmer clothes in her closet. Once she'd heard the rumblings in the main part of the house, it had driven all normal thoughts from her mind, including her routine check of her messages – text and otherwise.

But, she liked to save face as much as possible, and so she didn't back down just yet, even though she had clearly jumped to a rash conclusion.

"Well, why do you want to be here by yourself so badly anyway?" she demanded as though it were an interrogation. "Last I heard, Marshall and I didn't have anything more to offer than Mark and Jill."

It was salt in an open wound; Mary's terror had gotten the better of her and she was lashing out. Considering everything Norah had done for Alice over the last few days, she should've been able to cut her some slack on the argument they'd had on Wednesday night. Apparently, she wasn't quite ready to forgive.

"Whatever…" was Norah's typically teenage response. She turned her back on Mary and went across the kitchen to retrieve Knox's water dish, which she filled at the sink. "I just wanted to be alone for awhile. People have been practically on top of me since Alice got sick and I might as well be suffocating."

Again, the similarities her kid had with her could sometimes be glaring, and this was the second commonality that had been shared in less than two minutes. Try as she might to uphold her toughness, she was weakening. Mary might be talented at going toe-to-toe with someone, but that didn't mean she liked it, nor did she need to stir the pot.

"I suppose I can relate to that…" the inspector relented, finally bringing her voice down to a normal, less menacing volume. "Marshall, for one, can't leave me alone. All those doctors are driving me crazy and Stan and Lia showed up yesterday, then there was Jill, plus Lauren called…"

"Lauren?"

"Yeah, you know Lauren."

"Your sister?"

The stock response was ready to tumble out of Mary's mouth before she could stop herself – _half_ sister. She wanted to correct her daughter, because the way she wanted to reply was the way she still felt deep down. But, after everything she had put her through, the guilt trip she had imparted for daring to refer to Alice as her half-sister, she knew she couldn't. So, she bit her tongue and hoped her kid wouldn't use this against her anytime in the future.

"Yeah. Right. Her."

"Why did she call?"

"She's in town and wants to get together," Mary detailed briefly, not wanting to get into specifics. "I may see her tonight or tomorrow. It depends on Alice."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

The woman sighed, as though this conversation was costing her a great deal, but she knew immediately that to act as though it was tiresome was a mistake. Considering how little Norah spoke to her about anything of import, she should welcome it, no matter how fatigued she was or how fast her heart was still thrumming.

"Fifteen years ago," she replied with surprising accuracy. "It was before you were born."

"You think she's the same as she was then?"

"I have no idea," Mary went on truthfully. "Frankly, I didn't even know what to make of her the one time I did visit with her – I didn't know she was my sister. Jinx and Brandi kept it from me."

"Oh, yeah…" Norah said with sudden recognition. "Right."

It was hard to find a decent response to give to this, as it was a bit of a conversation-stopper. For Mary, this was just as well. Seeing Lauren was going to be taxing enough; she didn't need to waste additional minutes talking about her. Harmless, she might be, but the baggage she brought with her certainly wasn't when you considered James and Scott as well as their untimely demises. She was lucky she hadn't gotten caught in the crossfire.

But, the silence between them seemed to convince Norah that she and her mother had turned back into the strangers they had been for the past few months. She crossed her arms over her chest as though she was hugging herself and glanced around the room, unsure how to proceed. Mary chastised herself to come up with something so she would not feel awkward, but her mouth – or else her brain – did not seem to be working right. They just stood and stared at one another, then at Knox, and then at the floor.

And, as if just remembering why she had come home in the first place, Norah picked up Knox's leash, which she had unlatched, and set it on the counter along with her backpack which Mary hadn't noticed until now.

"Well…" the younger murmured, obviously desperate to get away. "I think I'm gonna go to my room…"

If she wanted to be alone, this was certainly an understandable choice, but this was when Mary's voice abruptly began to function again. As Norah moved toward the hall, she flung out her hand and stopped her short of the island, barring her path.

"Wait-wait-wait-wait…" she babbled, stepping in the way. "Hang on."

Norah frowned, "Why?"

"Just wait," Mary reiterated, not positive of what was going to come out next. "Don't go. Sit down. I want to talk to you."

Oh, good heavens. Was she really going to do this now? She certainly hadn't planned for it. Speaking from her heart – or out of her ass – had never panned out very well for Mary. She almost always ended up saying something she regretted, either because she got so angry she could barely see straight, or she became so disheveled and upset she was all-but hysterical. When she thought of all the defining moments in her life, all of them had been marred by emotion she hadn't meant to show.

Marshall being shot, showing her mother and sister the letters from her father after she'd been abducted, Brandi's arrest, Norah's birth and the afternoon that had come before it, James lying dead in the dirt, Brandi as equally motionless on an operating table, Norah missing with only a note left behind, Alice screaming into the world headfirst, getting the call that Jinx had been found unconscious…

Most of it did not inspire happy memories, but more than that, she had lost her cool in every one of those situations. Some – most, in fact – would say it was acceptable, but to remain in control, you could not let things like joy or sorrow overcome you. You had to stay the course if you wanted to make it out alive.

But, maybe she was jumping the gun. Who was to say this conversation had to be some kind of epic landmark in her life? Just because they opened their mouths and words came out – although, more difficult words than those used in every day discussion – did not mean they needed to pull out all the stops and make a production. Mary didn't desire that. She could bet Norah didn't either.

But, whatever her daughter was thinking, the woman did not really have to guess. Just at the mention of talking, she rolled her eyes and huffed, but she did as she was told and turned around, dropping into a stool at the island. This was progress all by itself. At least she wasn't running away.

Buoyed by this tiny bit of allowance, Mary was quick to follow her, noticing as she did so that the house had begun to heat up. Apparently, her tinkering with the thermostat had actually worked. This boded well, she thought.

As she took a seat across from Norah, she thought about offering her breakfast, about stalling and letting Knox out, but told herself several times to stay put. She was ready – as ready as she was ever going to be. There was no need to turn back now.

The teenager drummed her fingers on the table, blinking dispiritedly at the countertop, and she was the first to speak, no doubt hoping to get the whole thing over with.

"What do you want to talk about?"

It would be indelicate to just launch into the meat of the matter. She should do this like Marshall would. Cautiously, and with great care.

"Is there anything you want to tell me?"

She kept her voice neutral, never once trying to lead her daughter in a particular direction. And, it was entirely possible the confused look on her face wasn't an act; this was coming a bit out of left field for her, after all.

"Like what?"

Which topic would be the least dangerous? Mary considered. Bras, tampons, tormentors, or the showering of affection for Alice? None of them were appealing. Best to start with what she was sure of and work her way forward.

"Like the reason you hate going to school is because you're stuck with a bunch of immature assholes that can't deal with you being a little clumsy for half a second."

Jesus. This wasn't a witness. This was her kid. Where had such an elaborate depiction come from?

"Am I supposed to know what that means?" Norah asked. "And, since when do you think I'm clumsy?"

"I shouldn't have said that…" the blonde muttered with a wag of her head. "I just thought that…"

"It sounds like _you're_ the one who wants to tell _me_ something."

There could be no denying that, and it was plain that the seventh grader was going to hold onto the tribulations she had been experiencing until absolutely forced to reveal them. Mary was going to have to do the dirty work here. She supposed, as the parent, it was her job.

And so, gazing pointedly into the face of a little girl that looked so much like her own, she willed herself to be bold and not to shy away. The time was now.

"Norah, have you been wearing a bra? Did Jill buy one for you? And then, did you drop it outside your locker and a bunch of douche bag boys never let you forget it?"

For some reason, she expected the child to deny it, or at least to shrug it off as though it were no big deal. But, evidently, it had not been a secret for the past several months for no reason. At hearing Mary ask questions to which she already knew the answers, her eyes widened and she put on a look of pure shock, mixed with the notion that she had been duped. That someone had sold her out.

"Who told you that?" she whispered, not unlike her imminent death might be near.

"Does it really matter who told me?" Mary leaned forward, elbows cutting into the hard surface of the island. "Is that what happened?"

Norah gulped, averting her eyes downward once again, and her mother instantly saw her cheeks go pink even in the dim light shared between them. The inspector knew she should not tell her how to feel, as she hated when people did that to her, but the phrases were out of her mouth before she could tell herself to shut up.

"Don't be embarrassed, Bug. Whatever happened, it wasn't your fault – you're not to blame. It's the kids who…"

"And Jill."

She said it so suddenly that Mary almost did not hear the interruption, especially since she still wouldn't meet her eyes. But, once she got her mind wrapped around it, there was no disputing it. The grudge was long and hard. And, for as badly as Mary wanted to remain on her side and blindly support her, something different surged forth.

"Jill didn't buy you the wrong size on purpose. You know that, don't you?"

She was gentle, handling with kid gloves – again, like she thought Marshall might've done. It was his aura that she needed to channel and, fortunately, Norah did not begin to fume. What she did was worse. She continued to speak to the counter, her face growing redder, like she didn't trust her mother at all – or else did not recognize her as someone to confide in.

"Maybe not, but she didn't have to go and tell dad everything. After she told him, he came to talk to me in my bedroom about boys and the things they think about and the things they do 'at my age.' And he said if I wanted to wear a bra and if I needed 'girl things' then he could always get them for me, that I shouldn't be afraid to ask him. I wanted him to stop, but he just kept talking and talking – about if I liked boys and did I want to go out with them and on and on and on. It was _humiliating_."

So, that was why she was really mad, Mary thought. The bra had been one thing, but Jill tattling to Mark had-had obviously catastrophic repercussions. She had no doubt that her ex-husband fully regretted his attempt at being understanding toward his teenage daughter, that he was aware he had stuck his foot in it. It obviously didn't make Norah feel any better.

"Well, that really sucks," Mary finally uttered in what she hoped was a fairly cool way. "That was dumb of him, and I'm sorry he put you through it, but he was probably as mortified as you were. I'm sure he wishes he'd thought it through and, if you want, I can tell him to leave you be about all that stuff."

Norah didn't comment on this, but instead burbled to her hands once again, "He doesn't know _anything_ about boys."

The mother could hear the catch in her voice, the one that meant tears were on their way. It took everything she had not to pounce, not to rise to the bait.

"You'd think he would, wouldn't you? You know, since he was one about a thousand years ago."

"But, he doesn't. He just thinks they're stupid and that they'll grow up – the girls too. But, they're _horrible_. _All_ of them."

The longing Mary felt to swoop in, to comfort, to impart words of wisdom, no matter how ineffective, was too intense for her to hold back.

"I'm sorry they've been giving you such a hard time, Norah," the apology coming from her would mean nothing, but it was the best she had. "I know this doesn't change anything, but they're the ones with the problem, not you. Not getting to know you for who you are – that's their loss."

"Is it?" she squeaked in a small voice, sounding about half her age. "I don't see why anybody would even want to be my friend. I'm not a nice person. I'm mad all the time. I'm nothing but a loser."

This brand of self-defamation was so like Brandi that Mary's reflexes told her to dole out her usual manner of tough love that she had used for so many years on her little sister. But, the instinct floated out as quickly as it had come on, and it was a good thing too. Because, the minute Norah criticized her self worth, fat, wet droplets came spilling out of her eyes and down her cheeks. Her entire face crumpled and her hands immediately slapped over her features, hiding them from her mother, who was more heartbroken by her humiliation than by her current state of being. When had she stopped believing she could tell Mary anything?

"Bug…" she spoke softly, leaning as far forward as she possibly could, her ribcage cutting into the edge of the counter. "You're not a loser. That's _them_. _They're_ the losers."

"Oh, really?" she croaked beneath her hands, not removing them to be properly heard. "So, I wasn't being a loser when I told dad that he was a geriatric old man that should never reproduce again? I wasn't being a loser when I told Alice she's not my sister, when I told Jill that I hate her?"

Mary had not been aware of this last portion, but it didn't ruffle her feathers.

"Well, by those standards, we're all losers sometimes. God knows I am," though she didn't mean for this to be about her. "But, you have had a hell of a lot to take in lately; even without the crap they're putting you through at school. I know it's not a picnic having to move and plan for a baby in the house, not to mention a wedding…"

"I don't want them to get married," here, she spoke freely, using her hands to mop up under her streaming eyes, exposing her mouth and making her words less muffled. "I don't hate Jill – I like her, most of the time. But, I really wish they weren't getting married…"

"How come?"

"Because I want it to be like it was…" she answered almost at once, proving this had been pressing on her mind for a long time before this moment. "I just want to go back. I want to go back to the way things used to be."

Mary wasn't going to assume, "How far back are we talking?"

Norah swallowed hard, trying to get a grip on herself, although her cheeks were still shining with wetness, and some of the tears had leaked into her hair. She was far from calm, but she was full-steam ahead.

"I miss Jinx…" she blurted out, causing Mary to want to agree with her on the spot, but she told herself to be patient and wait her out. "I miss the way it was when she was still alive – when Max was like, a baby, and Robyn was always running around pretending to be an actress instead of trying to find a boyfriend all the time…"

She was running on, using up all her breath, but it was like she couldn't put on the brakes.

"You didn't even work that much back then; Marshall didn't always come home at night, but he would go swimming with us, he'd take me to the park and read me stories; dad let me tear up his house, he taught me to play baseball and everything…" she had fallen into her memories now; was too absorbed in them to even think about Mary sitting there. "Grandma didn't get tired all the time like she does now, Peter wasn't gone every weekend and he and Brandi would baby sit…"

Peter. Mary hadn't even thought about him. When the kids had been young, he'd almost never traveled. Not so now that they were getting older.

"Jill wasn't around. It was before Alice was born."

It was this that finally put an end to her babbling, but Mary didn't think it was the look on her mother's face that caused it. She hated to think she would really trade Alice in just to resume her old, youthful life and, luckily, she seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"I'm not saying I wish you'd never had Alice…" coming from Norah, this was extremely kind. "It totally wouldn't be the same without her. I mean, when dad told me she was sick the other night, I was afraid she was dying – I didn't know what I'd do if I never saw her again, and after I was so mean to her, too…"

Well, that explained her recent goodwill, and that was a conversation avoided. Marshall had been right, but she had no opportunity to think about that now.

"But, it was so much easier when I was little. The kids never made fun of me. I didn't think about having to go out on dates and be cool. I didn't have to try so hard to get good grades. I never had homework…" that took care of a few of the school mysteries. "It's so unfair. It's so simple for kids like Alice. Why can't it be that way for me?"

It was the first inquiry she had posed in several minutes, and Mary was slightly startled to think she actually wanted a response. She yearned to be able to say something profound, to fix it all, whip up a magic potion and transport her daughter back about six years and make all her dreams come true. But, she couldn't do that. Worse still, she didn't even have a good reason why everything became so complicated the longer life progressed. What a help she was going to be.

But, Mary's greatest talent had always been her ability to deliver the truth, no frills and sugarcoating. Maybe, if she was lucky, Norah would appreciate that. With her big brown eyes still drowning in unshed tears, her face was one of hope, her mouth slightly agape as she waited for her mother to mend her bleeding gashes.

"I wish I could tell you, Norah…" she started out, shaking her head the entire time. "It's so hard to grow up, to lose all the things you took for granted without knowing you would miss them – finger-painting and recess and birthday parties and all that…" metaphors were not her specialty, and she attempted to veer away from them. "For what it's worth, it isn't just hard for you. It's tough for everyone…"

"Not for the other kids," she insisted almost manically, eyes suddenly wild. "They can't wait to be older. I don't understand it. It just gets worse, doesn't it?"

"I don't know…" Mary couldn't commit to anything there. "I think it depends on who you are and what you want. I think it's great that you recognize the simpler things in your life – it's a gift a lot of people don't have," she informed her. "So many others strive for bigger and better all the time, and that's not you. It's the little things that make you happy…"

"Yeah, but…"

The inspector interjected, "You know, Marshall's like that. He's all about the simple."

She had thought Norah might smile at the connection being forged, but she didn't; she was still listening intently.

"But, at the end of the day, no matter how smart it is to embrace all the small pleasures that come your way, you can't go back…" somehow, it felt so crushing to disclose this, though it was foolish to believe Norah really thought otherwise. "I'm afraid if you go into the future kicking and screaming that it'll only make everything more difficult. I should know."

"How would you know?" there was no malevolence, only curiosity.

"Well, Jesus, because I was the master at hanging onto something that wasn't ever going to change. It screwed me up big time."

"What, because you thought your dad was going to come home?"

Norah was more perceptive than she gave herself credit for, and Mary nodded sagely.

"Yep. Gave me a whole lot of unresolved shit to deal with – I'm talking until the day he died. It was sad, was what it was," she admitted. "I don't want that to happen to you, Bug. I'm not saying you can't be royally pissed off at the world, especially when you're a teenager, but choking the life out of something you just can't have is going to make you miserable."

It was a harsh fact of life that you couldn't turn around and do anything over, that you couldn't control what mistakes had been made or what joys had already passed you by. All you could do was map out your own journey in the here and now and hope it worked out, even if the odds were you would end up going a completely different direction. An intelligent girl like Norah, she liked to think she could accept that, even if it took time.

"Yeah, but even if I know I can't go back to when I was a kid, it doesn't make me like being a teenager any better – not with how much everyone despises me."

By this, the older hoped she was only referring to her classmates, the ones that couldn't let one silly incident pass them by.

"Your less-than-lovely peers might be a bunch of juvenile jerks…" she wanted there to be no question that she recognized how grueling such a situation was. "But, I want you to know that no matter how mad we get sometimes, no matter how frustrated we are – Marshall and I love you and we're never going to turn on you…" Knowing she should include others in this, "Your dad loves you too, even if he was kind of an idiot as far as all that feminine stuff goes." This got a warbling giggle, which Norah was quick to stifle. "Even Jill. They both blundered around pretty badly there, I won't lie. But, they were trying to help."

"I guess…" she conceded dismally. "But, I wouldn't have had to ask Jill for a bra at all if…"

The end of the sentence didn't come, but a skittish glance flitted across the thirteen year old's eyes, showing that she had not said all that she'd planned. But, with most of Robyn's information flowing through her brain, Mary could take a pretty good gander at where her daughter's presumption was going. Knowing that she had been mortified to reveal a lot in their little heart-to-heart here, she knew that now it was her turn. Her face could flame like a bonfire, but she would have to suck it up.

"If you thought you could talk to me," she finished soundly. "Hmm?"

An awkward sort of quiet tittered among them, Knox's toenails clicking as he made his way into the living room for a nap on the couch. The heater hummed and Norah kicked her feet under the stool, folding her arms in front of her and looking anywhere but at Mary. She was so elusive that when she finally opened up again, Mary had to glance twice because the girl's eyes were roving all over the room.

"You get so weird about…" a completely unnecessary throat-clearing took place and fingers tapped absently. "…You know. Sex and things like that," she rattled off. "I really needed the bra and I didn't think you'd get me one."

"Well, I would have," Mary promised. "Although, I don't blame you for thinking otherwise."

Norah seemed not to hear her, "And I really wanted to tell you about something that happened the other day, but you were ready to kill me because of my grades and everything, and I didn't want to make you madder by talking about something that you don't like to talk about…"

Here it comes. Mary shouldn't make her say it. She was supposed to be the adult. She could say it. She could. She would beat her to the punch.

Three…two…one…

"Did you get your period for the first time?"

It came in such an ungraceful rush that she wouldn't be surprised if Norah misunderstood. But, by watching scrupulously, she could catch the mute, quick nod that came from across the island. Mary did not know what the traditional response to this milestone was, but all she could think about was the Norah had been harboring the secret for several days, and all because of her jittery mother. Talk about unfair.

"I'm sorry about the way I am, Bug…" it was useless now, but she could own up and be done with it. "I just…I didn't want to make a big deal, having talk after talk with you about when it finally came. It happens to every girl and I suppose I was trying to avoid presenting it to you the way Jinx brought it up with me…"

Norah became inquisitive and snapped her head around, "What do you mean?"

"Oh, Jinx was horrifying when it came to this stuff…" she shared with bravado. "She wasn't at her best back then. She gave me pads when I was nine years old – and in those days they were the size of a river raft," she went on. "I was way too young to learn about it, but she thought it was what was best for me and then she never shut up about it. When I finally got my period, she used the most idiotic expressions to talk about it, like it was indecent to say what it really was…"

"Really?"

"Aunt Flow…your monthlies…bloody Mary – she thought that one was really clever…"

Norah was laughing now, although trying to hide it.

"And, in school they called it _menstruation_ , and I was older than you before anyone there talked to us about it…" she declared. "It was different then, but I hated that everyone made it into this huge event, especially Jinx. I didn't want you to think it had to be this massive, life-altering thing…" speaking from experience didn't get you everywhere, however. "But, if I'd stopped and asked you what you thought instead of thinking about what _I_ wanted, maybe you would've talked to me. I never intended for you to think you couldn't, Norah."

"But, I guess maybe I was embarrassed too – maybe it wasn't all your fault…"

"Well, I'll have to note that you said _that_ ," Mary thought maybe it was safe to tease her now, the way she was lightening up. "Here I thought most everything was my fault."

She said this partially with sarcasm, and not all of it was directed at Norah and the ways she blamed her parents for all the shortcomings in her life. Part of it was internal – her need to protect and secure meant that she didn't handle herself well when there was nothing she could do but ride out the storm. With all that time to brood, she tended to convince herself that if she couldn't fix it, she was the one responsible for it happening in the first place.

"And, it wasn't really that I didn't want to tell _you_ …" the girl mostly disregarded her mother's remark, which was probably just as well. "It's that I _did_ want to tell _somebody_ – like, a friend, or something. But, I didn't have anyone to tell. And, I was upset about it."

"I suppose there's always Robyn…" the inspector speculated, knowing even as she said it that this wouldn't satisfy her daughter. "But, I know that's not really what you're talking about. It's hard to go it alone, Bug. I hope you don't have to be isolated for as long as I was when I was your age – that these kids give you a break and you can find your niche."

"It's not everybody…" she sighed, tipping her chin onto her folded hands so she was horizontal to the island. "But, even the ones who aren't mean just don't say anything at all."

"Sometimes that feels just as bad."

"But, there is this one boy that's in my social studies class…"

"Not the teacher, surely."

Norah gaped; disgrace sinking right back into her features, "Did Alice squeal?" it was obvious she would ready herself for a fight against her injured little sister if she had been betrayed. "Because, I made her promise that…"

"Cool out; she didn't say anything," Mary chuckled, holding up a hand. "I may be dim on occasion Norah, but there are a few things I can still pick up. It's not anything to me if you have a crush on that baby-faced, history-loving…"

"It's not a crush!" she spluttered, but then seemed to decide it was better to change the subject. "And, anyway, he wasn't even who I was talking about…"

"Well then, to whom are we referring?" she cringed at just how much she sounded like Marshall. "Here I thought there was no one."

"He's not really my _friend_ …" to downplay it was to head off disappointment if it didn't pan out in the long run. "He's just not like the other kids. He's nice to me. I sit next to him in social studies, and sometimes we have to be partners and share our book and stuff, and he's sort of shy and quiet – kind of like Max – but he never makes fun of me…"

"What's his name?" Mary prodded, encouraged that there was at least a prospect on the horizon.

"Ian."

"Ian," she repeated, trying it on for size. "Well, if I were you, I'd keep this in the vault, because if anyone else in this house hears about it, they'll say he's your boyfriend…"

"He's _not_ my boyfriend."

"I know," her mother replied patiently. "I'm just saying. Others might not be so casual about it," she meant Alice or Robyn or maybe even Mark. "But, if you ever feel like bringing him here, you can. I'd like to meet him."

"I don't know…" Norah hunched her shoulders indifferently. "Like I said, he's not really my friend."

"Right."

Mary would let her think that if she wanted, if it made her feel better to keep this boy at arm's length rather than risk ruining the relationship by making it more than it was. Still, she was as curious as she'd indicated about who this young man was. If he was willing to give her kid a chance when no one else would even look her way, she was likely to hug him if they ever came face to face.

All in all, the woman thought that the two of them had done fairly well in bearing their souls, although Norah had done most of the bearing. Whether it would do any good down the road as far as attitudes and tempers went, she couldn't know. At the very least, she hoped she had influenced her daughter that there was no need to keep secrets – she could open up to her mother about anything. She was even willing to start slinking away, wrapping things up, before one of them spoiled a good thing.

But, Norah wasn't quite done.

"Who was your first best friend?" she proposed, glancing up with her head cocked to one side. "Did you have one when you were in middle school or before? Or did the stuff with your dad and Jinx keep you from having any friends at all?"

This wasn't a question she had anticipated, but at least she could answer it honestly; she didn't even have to think.

"My parents pretty much consumed me when I was young – them, and Brandi," she said. "I didn't have a real best friend until I was grown, and that was Marshall."

"Wow, really?"

"Yep," she nodded. "I guess I knew I wasn't gonna find anyone better than him and decided to wrap up best friend and partner and husband all in one – save myself the trouble of finding people to fill all those slots," a joke.

"But, you don't _just_ have him…" Norah raised her eyebrows, like she was surprised her mother didn't realize this. "What about Brandi and Peter? Or Stan and Lia? I mean even you and dad get along when you're not screaming at each other…"

And, much as she liked to close herself off and pretend she was still that abandoned little girl waiting on the doorstep for the one person she was convinced made her life complete, she had to face that-that wasn't the case anymore. Why was it so hard for her to let go of that image? There was no reason to yearn for it when it had brought her nothing but desolation. She wasn't a kid anymore; she didn't need her father or the feelings he'd left her with to get through each day.

With a mental shake, she suddenly realized that she might've passed this unruly trait onto Norah – letting all your setbacks define you rather than working through them and moving on. And, bouncing off the advice her daughter had just given her, she turned it right around and put it back on her.

"That goes for you too, you know," she affirmed. "Marshall and I aren't the only ones you can depend on. Brandi and Peter and Stan and Lia and your dad and Jill are all on your side – so are Robyn and Max and even Alice, even if they don't always show it the way the rest of us do," she amended. "Don't run away if you need them, okay?"

"I won't if you won't."

Knowing this was a trade she had to make, Mary extended her hand across the table to take her child's, which she gratefully accepted. For some reason, she expected it to feel small inside her own, like that of a little girl's, but it didn't – it fit almost perfectly inside her own, strong and sturdy and with a hefty grip. It felt nice.

Squeezing lightly, she offered a smile and was fortunate enough to receive one in return.

"Deal."

XXX

 **A/N: Only a handful of chapters left!**


	43. Chapter 43

**A/N: Much love to Jayne Leigh for all her catch-up reviews!**

XXX

"Come here, Little Bit. Your dear father can't possibly carry you and your pounds of luggage at the same time."

"I was managing until you showed up and tried to maul us."

"Not maul – hug. I thought such a thing was in your vocabulary, but I'll remember not to make the mistake of being affectionate twice."

"Come now; you know that's not what I meant…"

"Too bad. Can't take it back now, doofus."

Alice giggled as she was passed from her father's arms into her mother's, wrapping her legs around her waist and clinging to her neck as though she were afraid of being dropped. Even though Mary knew she could not possibly have lost weight in just a few days, she felt oddly light and rubbery, her bones more fragile. Trying to survive on hospital food would do that to you, and she made a mental note to fatten her up now that she was home where she belonged.

Leaving Marshall to drag all of Alice's many possessions inside the entryway – stuffed animals, extra pairs of pajamas, and a dozen or so other things she had not even needed for a three-night stay – Mary gave her daughter a more thorough once over. Kissing her pale cheeks, she rumpled her tangled curls and savored the ecstasy of holding her close, all in one piece even if there were only staples holding her together in the middle.

"How are you, babe?" she asked, still kissing every bit of skin she could reach. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to see you this morning, but dad said you'd be here soon and I was trying to get everything squared away so you wouldn't come home to a big mess…"

"I like when it's messy," was Alice's six-year-old response. "My room is always dirty – if I put everything away, then I wouldn't know where stuff was."

"Even so…" Mary rationalized. "I wasn't trying to dump you or anything. How's your stomach? Does it feel okay?"

"You know…" Marshall came puffing back inside, throwing all the bags he was carrying onto the bench inside the door. "I could be wrong, but I do not believe they would have released her from a doctor's care were she not fit to mingle with those of us still in possession of our appendix," he spouted between gasps, catching his breath. "So, there is no need to question the authority."

"Who's questioning?" his wife wanted to know, securing Alice on her hips and not missing the look of delight on her face at their banter. "I know all about quacks and their regulations, and I know about _you_ just taking them at their word, so forgive me for double-checking…"

"She's fine," he argued, not even giving his daughter the opportunity to speak for herself. "Look at her – first rate."

"Yeah, I can't say the same about you," Mary joshed, appraising him with her eyes without once letting go of Alice. "Some weight lifting might do you some good in the near future, shrimpy. You're breaking a sweat and those bags are not exactly filled with bricks…"

"My-my-my, aren't we feisty today?" he replied with a smirk. "But, I assure you, much as I wanted my sugar home safe and sound, I did not pack her up at the first available opportunity. I questioned _many_ professionals to ensure she was safe to set up camp at Chez Shannon-Mann…"

"Mmm hmm…" his partner hummed disapprovingly, mostly for Alice's benefit so she would giggle again.

"And, I'm sure this won't make any difference to you, but she can walk, believe it or not…" he must've been referring to the way Mary would not release her iron hold on their daughter even as she carried her further into the living room toward the couch. "Watched her myself."

" _Can_ and _going to_ are two different things," she emphasized, not influenced for one second that Alice could motor around on two legs without reinjuring herself. "Let's dispute the liar here, Alice…" she turned to the mentioned with a shameless twinkle in her eye, ganging up against her father. "Is he making this up?"

"I _did_ walk…" she admitted, albeit tentatively and without the air that she wanted to try it again soon. "The nurses and everybody wanted to make sure that I could before I left the hospital…"

"You see," Marshall interrupted, but his wife shushed him.

"I didn't like it, though," she shook her head as though that would banish the memory. "It hurt a lot. It made me cry because my belly burned. I almost fell down."

Mary cast her man a wild-eyed look at this harrowing description, unable to believe he could be so cavalier about the whole thing. What was her kid doing in the presence of mere novices when clearly she should have a more experienced eye looking after her? Not that Mary _wanted_ her confined to the hospital, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She couldn't even stand on her own two feet, and when she did she was seconds away from her incisions coming unspooled. What had everyone been thinking?

"Have you lost your mind?" she aimed this remark directly at Marshall as she lowered Alice carefully onto the sofa and retrieved a folded up blanket from the end to throw over her. "Telling me she can walk when she has to practically kill herself just getting up!"

"Mary-Mary-Mary…" he sighed, but still grinning, which showed he was not completely exasperated with her mother hen routine just yet. "What are we going to do with you and your paranoia?"

"It is not paranoia!"

"That's what they all say…"

"I just don't take chances!"

"Well, I don't either…" he justified in his usual even tone. "But, look at the facts. She's in good spirits, she's talking if not walking, she's comfortable, and she's home with us. The rest we can take as it comes, wouldn't you say?"

Frankly, Mary had-had quite enough of being blindsided and having to deal after a crisis had already occurred; she much preferred being able to see these things coming. But, she knew that Marshall – as he always did – had a valid point. Loathing doctors was a common custom in her world, but deep down she didn't really suspect them of being fraudulent. If they thought Alice was ready to be on her own, even if she couldn't head back to school or run around yet, she must be on her way to a full recovery.

More than anything, she was glad to have her back in the house where they could feasibly resume an even semi-normal routine, whatever normal meant in their lives. Her husband seemed to sense she was loosening her claws, so to speak, because his smile grew slightly broader, the way it did when he knew he had won her over.

"You're glad to be home, aren't you, Big Al?" he tousled her brunette coils as he said this. "Back in your own bed, eating your own food…"

"What's for dinner?" she chirped, latching onto the idea at once.

"I don't know if mom's gotten that far…" Marshall stole a cagey glance at the blonde.

"Give me a little credit – I can at least unwrap something or pour something out of a box," she claimed. "I thought I'd let you pick," she told Alice. "Pizza? Macaroni and cheese? Chicken nuggets?"

"Home cooking at its finest…" Marshall muttered, picking up on his mate's sarcasm.

But, Alice was not disappointed in the least, "I want pizza! Can we have ice cream too?"

"I suppose…"

"Chocolate chip with cookie dough, right?"

A fourth, unexpected voice suddenly cut into their dialogue, and Mary turned around, almost having forgotten that her older daughter was in the house. But, there she was nonetheless, coming out of her bedroom and showing no signs that their nitty gritty discussion from the crack of dawn had caused her to be any worse for wear. They still hadn't worked out logistics on how much or how little to tell Marshall, but Mary would take her cue from her daughter.

And, at the moment, it seemed they could leave behind the rough road of middle school and center in on Alice, who would want to be at the front of everyone's thoughts anyway.

"Norah!" Marshall exclaimed as though she had just stepped out of a time machine; evidently, his excitement at having Alice home caused him to spread happiness just about everywhere. "I didn't know you were here…"

"I came home this morning," she reported, coming into the light a little awkwardly, like she wasn't sure how much to say or do. "Dad said he could drop me off on his way to a job."

"Well, wonderful!" the man proclaimed, spreading his arms wide as though to swallow all of them up. "A night with just the four of us – a stellar quad if ever I saw one, yes?"

"What are you, an emcee?" Mary groused, trying to get him to tone it down. "You act like you have something to broadcast here."

"Who is to say I don't?" he fully ignored her griping and, once Norah was close enough, he swept her into his side and planted a kiss on her blonde hair. "I think a family gathering such as this is to be celebrated, especially in light of recent events…"

"It was appendicitis, not the plague."

"What's the plague?" Alice asked interestedly.

"A disease you get from rats," Norah piped up without even saying hello, but sitting down at her sister's feet as though she were staying for a chat.

"Gross!"

"Not always," Marshall was ingrained to speak when there was an education to be had. "Rats, yes, but also fleas that the rats were infested with…"

"Ugh!" his little girl spluttered, sticking her tongue out in revulsion. "That is sick!"

"They called it the Black Death too, right Marshall?" Norah glanced upward at her step father for confirmation. "It was like, millions of years ago; you can't get it now…"

"Yes, it spread through Europe in the thirteen hundreds," he professed; all he needed was Mary's glasses to give him a teaching appearance. " _Quite_ nasty indeed, Big Al. A bursting appendix really pales in comparison, I must say."

"It had another name too, though, didn't it?" the teenager crinkled her nose in thought, trying to remember everything Marshall had already taught her, which couldn't be easy. "It started with a B…"

"Bubonic plague," the chief supplied at once. "It is a Greek term, roughly translated as 'groin…'"

Norah began to giggle uncontrollably upon hearing this, slapping her hand over her mouth with her cheeks turning scarlet. Alice, of course, was unfamiliar with the word, but her big sister's adolescence was really shining through. Happy as she was that everyone was getting along and enjoying themselves, Mary thought this was probably a good time to shift gears.

"I've got quite an appetite now, how about you guys?"

Norah could not get a hold of herself and continued to sputter with chuckles long after she'd tried to shut up, with Alice looking on bewilderingly nearby. Marshall, however, took the hint, no matter how much he enjoyed schooling his girls on the grislier parts of history.

"We should get a pizza in the oven if you were looking for sustenance sometime soon, sugar…" the father forecasted, following his wife into the kitchen and leaving the children to their own devices. "Will it be pepperoni or cheese? I believe we have both…"

"Cheese!" the daughters chorused as though it were a line in a play.

Mary rolled her eyes, "Why do we even buy pepperoni?"

With the unanswered question, she went to the freezer and pulled out the pie, skimming the directions for preheating and cook time. Marshall stood smugly nearby, as though it were impossible not to look like the cat that swallowed the canary what with all the good fortune blossoming around them. Their home being full again and the girls not barking at each other every few seconds had to feel like Christmas to him.

But, Mary was not a woman who was turned on by arrogant behavior, no matter how false or well-intentioned, and she soon whacked his bicep to get him to snap out of it.

"You're really starting to freak me out…" she hissed. "Honestly, it's creepy – this thrill you're spreading around. Your teeth are going to start sparkling any minute. Game show host in the making."

"Well, forgive me for appreciating the little things."

At this, Mary froze unintentionally, forgetting just how good he was at reading her mind even when he didn't know he was doing it. Just that morning, she had praised Norah's ability to cherish small moments, much like Marshall did. Apparently, that had not been untrue.

"Just don't get cocky," she warned with a pointed finger after she had hit the desired buttons on the oven with a series of beeps. "Hazards lurk in every alley."

"Uh-huh…"

"They do," she persisted. "You're asking for trouble thinking this is as good as it gets."

"I've heard it all before," and so he had. "You cannot dampen my morale, inspector. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

"Well, that depends on _who_ is joining us…" if she was going to get him to wipe that ridiculous look off his face, she was going to have to give up a little of her information. "Care to set an extra place at the table for tomorrow morning?"

"Guests!" he hollered, still at top volume. "Visitors – fresh meat!" he raised his eyebrows about five times so that they resembled dancing caterpillars. "Who will be gracing us with their presence?"

The blonde looked at the floor as she said it, "Lauren."

It was a good thing she refused to make contact with his piercing, periwinkle eyes, exactly the shade of Alice's and always guaranteed to break her in half if she was feeling at all vulnerable. It was foolish, really, to act like Lauren's eventual company was at all earth-shattering, because it only invited Marshall to dig in for the deep, meaningful thoughts going on in Mary's subconscious – assuming there were some. Better to let him think it was nothing.

"Lauren, you say…" his giddiness had not left him, and even without facing him directly, she could sense the enthralled anticipation in his voice. "For a bite to eat – in the morning, no less. That is perhaps giving her more than she bargained for; I'm not sure she has banked on meeting with you before noon, which is a treacherous prospect…"

"Very funny," she grumped derisively. "I doubt she's expecting bells and whistles."

"From what you have said, I doubt it too," he couldn't know for sure, never having met the elusive half-sister. "To what do we owe the pleasure of her presence so early in the day? Not that I don't love a good breakfast smorgasbord, but…"

"She's traveling and has to get moving before lunchtime," Mary butted in, migrating over to the cabinets to pull down four plates. "Just as well – it'll get it over with."

"Don't sound so eager," he ragged on her shamefully, taking her classic mockery and twisting it to make it supposedly humorous. "Brace yourself, why don't you?"

"Boy, you are just a laugh riot tonight, aren't you?" the inspector snapped, nearly dropping the plates so that they made an awful clang when she saved them by sliding them onto the island. "Seriously, did one of those doctors give you a lobotomy free of charge? If you don't get that stupid, silly look off your face, I swear I will shoot it off…"

"All right, all right, all right…" he held up his hands to indicate a truce, stepping over so that he was in front of her again, where she leaned her elbow against the island. "I'm sorry – I'll cut back. Swear," he even saluted, as though this would solidify his honesty. "I'm just glad we're all under one roof again. Alice is doing great, and Norah…"

The way he breathed out and shook his head in an awestruck way could only specify positive things ahead, but Mary wasn't really listening and leapt to the negative, fearful he would guess all the things they had discussed much earlier in the day. She wasn't up for going over them again, and certainly not with her seventh grader in the next room.

"Oh, what about Norah?" she exhaled, girding herself, but she needn't have done.

"No – she seems like she's in such a lovely mood…" he waved his hand toward the living room, where Mary saw that the two sisters were still chattering, both of them with gentle grins on their faces. "I think that's fantastic. Perhaps she's turning a corner."

"I don't know about that…" still, it was nice to know she was still taking a stab at getting along with Alice. "A few civilized days here and there doesn't mean she's over the hump…"

"I understand that," he echoed, and Mary was pleased that he was using his more natural timbre this time, no more goofiness. "But, I stand by what I said in the first place – seeing you and Lauren make ties will prove to her that all siblings can be worth a shot, partial or otherwise, what with Mark's baby right around the corner…"

"I think you're expecting too much," but, that was likely because she always expected so little. "I'll just count myself if lucky if all Lauren wants is to catch up. Knowing what the fates usually have in store for me, she probably wants a favor."

"Would that be so terrible?"

"I'm not going to answer that."

And, she wouldn't – not until presented with said favor right in front of her disgruntled face. Sweeping past her partner to go back to the freezer to look for ice cream – who said you couldn't have dessert first? – she did what she could to shove all thoughts of Lauren out of her mind. If she obsessed about it, she wouldn't get a second of sleep that night, and she didn't need any help in that area. She was already going to be tossing and turning worrying about Alice rolling over in bed and bleeding out on her bedroom floor.

Pawing through frozen dinners and a bag of tater tots, she finally located a carton of ice cream that was not expired and set it on the counter to thaw. Past experience probably meant she would forget about it until it was far too warm to eat, but who cared?

"Hey…"

Marshall startled her by using a hushed tone and tapping her arm lightly, but she responded nonetheless to see what he wanted. At first, she assumed it was another placating about Lauren, or else an admonition to dismiss her acerbic manner for one evening. But, when she caught sight of his face, she found that he wasn't even looking at her – he was looking at the pair in the living room.

Following his line of sight, she tried to see the more intimate dwellings in each of her daughter's faces. Norah didn't seem so exposed or susceptible to hurt anymore, but intellectual, maybe even wise, when she spoke to Alice – like she knew all the worldly secrets of their existence and was disclosing them to her and her alone.

Alice ate it up, so fulfilled and rewarded by the vibrant attention she was receiving from a girl that Mary and Marshall alone knew she deeply admired. Such positive forces softened her and turned into less of a spectacle; the light she tried so hard to project was no longer a blinding glare, but a beautiful glow. She might've been adored by so many, and yet until recently, the one person she'd wanted a second glance from never even looked her way.

"I really think they must've put something in the water around here lately…" Marshall whispered with his wife standing by, now staring just as hungrily. "Seriously, we should start counting the minutes – how long they'll last until they start bickering."

"I don't think they're going to," the woman replied, surprised at herself for her confidence in them. "Or, if they do, it won't be a gang fight like the days of old…"

"I'm just thoroughly discombobulated…" that much was obvious. "They're not just talking; they actually look like they're enjoying themselves…"

So they did. Both were smiling; every few seconds one or the other would even chuckle quietly. The married couple was too far away to really hear what they were saying, but perhaps it was better that way. It was their own secret language – a language only they understood.

"I would hate to say that Alice's misfortune was a blessing in disguise, but…"

"But, for someone like you, that can find the diamond in a pile of coal, that's what it is."

"Very poetic, inspector," he praised approvingly. Wrapping his arm around her waist and whispering stealthily in her ear, " _Very_ poetic indeed."

His breath was warm and tickly; Mary had forgotten how intoxicating he could be when he was in the right frame of mind, when he came in for the kill with nothing but his heart and his hormones to guide him. So many days out of the year, he was the perfect gentleman, and yet when the mood struck him right, he was as starving as anyone else for passion with the person he loved.

"If you think you're getting some with two kids in the house, one of them unable to walk, you really _are_ ambitious," she really liked to tease him, to give him a taste and then expertly make him wait. "Any second now they're gonna be shrieking for their pizza…"

"Ah, Norah can get it, can't she?" now his lips were running over her ear, onto her cheek, and one hand was threading through her hair. "They're big girls; they can take care of themselves…"

"Yeah, right…" but, she closed her eyes and soaked in his smell and his touch, knowing it was bound to end in a matter of seconds. "You gonna be saying that when Alice crashes and burns because she's going stir crazy all cooped up on the couch?"

"Maybe…"

"Liar-liar, pants on fire…"

"Such eloquence from you this evening…"

"'I'm rubber and you're glue,' will be the next thing you'll hear if you like witty rhymes…"

"Shut up and kiss me…"

He might as well have been the hunk in some loathsome romantic comedy, the way he asked her to plant one on him, but she didn't need much of an invitation. The way his mouth so skillfully roved over her skin, his hands doing likewise down her back and through hair, it was a wonder she had waited so long in the first place. He was the best smell, the softest touch, the purest heart she had ever encountered, and she could scarcely believe she'd forgotten how dizzyingly happy he really made her when she was brave enough to coax him in.

So often, their lives revolved around their children – their wants, their needs, even their petty wishes that they could live without; they catered to everything just by acknowledging it even if they didn't always give in. It astonished Mary that she could really neglect her old feeling of fierce independence for such long periods of time on behalf of the girls. For so many years, she'd had only herself to rely upon and that was the way she liked it. Now, she was fortunate if she caught even a second by herself – and, if she did, she wasn't hankering to stay isolated.

The man she would always run to with her free moments was now caught up in her kiss, breathing her in, pulling her into an embrace with his strong, sturdy hands. Mary was the one to rake her fingers through his hair now, scratching her nails against the skin beneath, which earned her a contended moan.

"We really should stop…" her command was half-hearted as she worked her lips partially away from his. "I still have to tell them about Lauren coming; they don't even know…"

But, Lauren suddenly seemed like a distant memory, as did Norah and Alice. It was the two of them and the two of them alone. It was how they'd begun twenty eternal years before. A quirky but brilliant man and a cutting but secretly frail woman with only a finger-wagging, sensitive and bald boss to tie them together and make them share their toys in the sandbox. Who knew that those days of silence across the office, swiping each other's paper clips and heatedly debating who was number one would take them here?

Marriage and two kids, with an extended family that was bursting at the seams, one that gave them a headache and yet one they couldn't live without. A unit, a team of individuals that always, one hundred percent of the time, stepped up to the plate with three outs and the bases loaded. No matter the problem, be it Norah's adolescence or Alice's appendix, they were always ready to rescue the two who were in charge and give them a break. Mary loved being the leader, and yet she equally loved that she didn't have to surge valiantly onward by herself any longer. She wasn't seven anymore.

"Lauren is hours and hours away…" Marshall murmured, seemingly not noticing just how lost in her thoughts his wife was becoming. "Hardly worth mentioning, I would say. There are more exciting scenes in the distance, my friend…"

"Since when do you throw all sense of decorum out the window just for a roll in the hay?"

No matter how crass her description, Marshall got the gist, and only he could give the perfect answer with his lips still pressed into her cheek. The prickling of his contented exhale on her bare flesh sent chills racing up and down her spine, and yet she had never welcomed anything more. Alice wasn't the only one who had come home. She didn't know how Marshall did it, but he always seemed to know when she'd poked her head out of the ground to breathe anew. Now was one of those times – a time when they could rebuild and begin again.

The spontaneous grin came without Mary's consent, but for once, she embraced the unexpected.

"Since I realized life is too short not to act like a kid again…" he whispered adoringly. "Meet me behind the bleachers in gym class, gorgeous?"

With the grin came a giggle, but Mary didn't have a hand free to cover her mouth.

"See you there, goober."

XXX

 **A/N: Only three chapters to go!**


	44. Chapter 44

**A/N: Little bit of suspension of reality in this chapter, as far as Mary's attitude goes…**

XXX

Lauren didn't come alone.

Mary stood on her threshold for an inordinate number of minutes, staring at one familiar face and another that belonged to that of a complete stranger. For all intents and purposes, even Lauren's mug was not all that recognizable – she had certainly aged in the last fifteen years, although the same could be said about Mary. Even though, she still greatly resembled the person she had once believed to be Jinx's cousin's daughter. Her hair was a shade darker and there were more wrinkles around her face, but she was still Lauren – same husky voice, same detached personality, same half-smile that could indicate either comfort or secrets.

The difference was that she was not alone. And, no matter how long Mary stood in the doorway, letting in the cool November morning air, she could not get past the fact that there were two faces on her porch, not one.

At first, she concocted truly wild explanations for the other person's appearance; she was a woman, as tall as Mary, with the same honey-colored hair and eyes so green they could be miniature avocados. Even Mary, who considered herself to have green eyes like Jinx's, did not possess orbs that put her in mind of the skin of Kermit the Frog.

Still, even with her practically chartreuse eyes and golden hair, her height and her long fingers attached to oddly wide palms, the inspector told herself this woman was no one. Lauren had brought her along for the ride to help with her mother's move. They were friends road-tripping together. They were business partners. They were neighbors. They were lesbian lovers, for all she knew.

Maybe her half-sister had been so eager to make a pit stop in Albuquerque because she was hankering to come out to every member of her family, even the extended one. This could be her girlfriend. Mary, not being a homophobe, could accept that with no problem. It would be a bullet dodged.

But, she knew better. The US Marshal tingle that forever flowed in her veins was well aware that this was not 'no one.' Her spidey senses were prickling more violently the longer she stood stock still on the doormat, willing herself to invite the two ladies inside. And yet, even if she had not been of outstanding law enforcement caliber, she would've realized that she was connected to this stranger – cosmically, intuitively; the bond would lay dormant in her very skin until they brushed hips or shook hands.

She knew. She knew as she had known with Lauren when they had exchanged goodbye hugs almost two decades earlier. Lauren was not a distant second cousin twice removed. She wasn't even an undercover FBI agent. She was her sister.

"This is Kelsey."

And so was Kelsey.

Numbly, blindly, Mary eventually got a hold of her senses and directed Lauren and the newcomer into her kitchen, offering them bagels and juice without even realizing she was doing it. Marshall, shut up in their bedroom with Norah and Alice, had set out quite a spread for the breakfast get-together, and had promised to emerge with the girls only when Mary sent him a text and gave him the go ahead. It was a good thing he wasn't here to see her now.

It was so dumb of her not to have expected this. She'd only spoken to Lauren a handful of times in her life, and there had never been any indication in her very deadpan personality that anything excited her. But, her ability to be quietly adamant about visiting Mary before packing up and taking off should've been red flag number one. She did not come bearing chit chat and good news. She came bearing another sister.

Mary's heart was hammering around so much she thought it might soon choke her, but otherwise she felt strangely calm. No, she wasn't thrilled about having been ambushed like this, but it was one morning – an hour or two out of her life. Then the Griffins – assuming that's what Kelsey was – would be gone. If the new one was anything like Lauren, Mary wouldn't have to finagle her phone calls any more than once a year.

Perhaps it was more than that, though. Maybe it was like Marshall had forecasted – they were starting over. Norah had come clean, Alice was recuperating brilliantly, they were back on good terms with Mark and Jill, there was Knox to chase after. If they were going to add Kelsey to the fray, this was probably the very best time. Had she come in three days before, she'd likely have gotten her ass kicked to the curb and a sound cursing out to go along with it. Timing was everything.

Once the three of them were settled at the island, nibbling bagels and sipping apple as well as orange juice, Mary knew it was probably time she said something. For the first time in a long time, she wished Brandi were there. She was far more talented at breaking the ice. Right now, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was trapped with two distorted twins she'd never met. Their similarities to one another were striking – the Shannon genes were strong.

"I don't…" her voice cracked when she tried to use it, and she took another sip of juice to try and clear her throat. "I don't…I feel like I'm out of the loop on a few things, here…" she changed her sentence halfway through. "I mean…I don't even know if you guys grew up together…"

"Right…" Lauren murmured.

"You and Scott did, didn't you?" the inspector directed this question at Lauren. "But, since we've never exactly been introduced, I thought maybe you were from one of dear old dad's other conquests…"

"I'm the youngest," Kelsey said, and Mary noticed her timbre was not rough and scratchy like Lauren's and Brandi's, but direct like her own. "Lauren's the oldest; she and Scott were three years apart. But, Scott was almost ten years my senior, so that makes Lauren and I, like, thirteen years apart…"

"So, when Scott was in high school, you were starting kindergarten and Lauren was pretty much out of the house," Mary put the pieces together. "Not a lot of time for bonding over bedtime stories."

"Pretty much," Kelsey agreed with a dark laugh. "You would think after dad bailed that we would've gotten closer, but we went our separate ways."

Mary couldn't stop the question from spilling out, "How old were _you_ when he left?"

And, for whatever reason, the answer didn't surprise her, "Seven."

It fit. The missing puzzle piece was here – Mary hadn't even really known it had been missing until now. But, she couldn't deny she'd always secretly wondered about the mysterious second sister, and here she was, showing that, at least in part, she had lived Mary's life. Maybe her mother hadn't been a drunk, maybe she didn't have Brandi to take care of, but the parallels were there. Sad as it was to share James' abandonment in common, there was a sense of kindred spirits about them.

"How old were you?" Kelsey repeated the inquiry, probably just to make conversation.

"I was seven too. Almost. I had my birthday two days after he ran."

"No kidding," a scoff.

"You can't make this stuff up."

For the first time in her life, Mary didn't wish that she _was_ making it up. For so long, she had longed to backpedal, to change what could not be undone, because her father's abandonment had left such a big hole in her world, one that had not been filled until so many years later.

But now, seeing that someone else had been saddled with the same fate, she could help but feel united, whereas in the past she would've been bizarrely jealous that James had hurt someone else as badly as he'd hurt her. Being put upon and piteous didn't get you very far, but it was an attitude Mary had adopted, thinking no one understood her pain because no one else had gone through it. Not so anymore.

"So, how come you haven't been around before now?" Mary ventured recklessly, not faring very well with not sounding accusatory. "Did you not know that Lauren showed up ages ago, letter in hand…?"

"Well, like I said, we weren't exactly close…"

"I guess you could say we're reconnecting now," Lauren broke in, popping a bite of bagel in her mouth. "Kelsey and I, that is. She was just a kid when I left for college…"

"Yeah, you mentioned that."

"So, this is part of reconnecting," Kelsey herself linked the dots. "Going to meet mom in Miami – seeing you along the way. Lauren's told me you're pretty guarded, like she is…"

"You?" Mary raised her eyebrows, surprised to hear herself compared to her long-lost kin this way. "So, does that mean everyone bugs the hell out of you about 'opening up' and 'expressing your feelings' like they do me?"

"I suppose…" Lauren chuckled hoarsely and shrugged her shoulders. "Although, being a writer, people just assume that I'm a suicidal alcoholic that can only articulate herself through haikus and other pretty poems."

The sarcasm wasn't quite the same brand as Mary's. When she let loose some acidity, there was no doubt that she was in a foul mood and everyone had better watch out. Lauren's was lighter and said with an eccentric smile, but that matching cynicism was still there.

"I had forgotten you were a writer," the Marshal admitted, which was perfectly true. "Published anything?"

"Nowhere you'd find it…" her tone was slightly bitter, but she still didn't toss out the smirk. "But, the Internet gives you better venues for that sort of thing than people like Sylvia Plath had fifty years ago."

"What do you write?" she pressed, gulping down so much orange juice she was in danger of gagging, but for some reason it kept the conversation in motion. "Poems or novels or what?"

"Short stories, mostly," she revealed. "I study authors like there's an exam right around the corner. Wallow in self pity when I decide I'm never going to be as brilliant as they are," a chortle.

"You should talk to my husband," Mary volunteered, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them, but anytime anything academic was involved, she couldn't help but think of Marshall. "He's a real book nerd; he eats all that stuff up."

The mention of her partner threw up an invisible wall. As Kelsey had already alluded to, Mary was a private person – apparently, Lauren was too. It was funny how such an addition could create tension, especially since Lauren was well aware she was married and had children, even if she hadn't met a single one of them. But, bringing other individuals into the fold made the visit more real and less of a distorted daydream they were sure to wake up from. Mary still wasn't so certain she wasn't going to be jolted back to life only to find there was no extra sibling that had been carrying a version of her face around for the past thirty years.

"You're married?" Kelsey was the first to leap in with both feet, but it only earned her an elbow jab from _her_ big sister, akin to the way Mary was with Brandi.

"I told you she was," Lauren hissed, and it was the first time the inspector had seen her show any flicker of emotion. "Can't you keep up?"

"I forgot…"

"It's fine," Mary interrupted before they could start sniping. "Yes, I'm married," she confirmed. "His name's Marshall – he's here, actually; he's hanging out with my girls."

Both Griffin sisters swapped a shared look at this moment, probably wondering why Mary had locked up her mate along with her children – if she had something to hide. That wasn't it at all, and she didn't have a strong desire to set them straight. Besides, if Kelsey had neglected to recall that she had a spouse, she'd probably forgotten there were kids in the picture as well.

But, this put Mary in mind of something entirely different. _She_ was married, but what about them? Lauren had never mentioned a single thing about her personal life, minus the fact that she was a writer, and Kelsey was a complete mystery. A sister was one thing, but did she have brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews out there somewhere too? The thought was a frightening one, and Mary suddenly didn't feel so calm anymore.

"What about you guys?" she burst out before either one of them could question her about Norah and Alice, who were sure to come up again. "Either of you tied the knot, become the old ball and chain?"

She wasn't much for worn out expressions, but it didn't matter; Lauren and Kelsey shook their heads in unison, as though they had rehearsed it, and spoke almost simultaneously as well.

"No, we're not."

Mary instantly felt better, foolish as it was, and oddly triumphant as well. She never would've thought that she and Brandi, of all people, would look like the stable, settled down siblings. But, that wasn't really what soothed her – it was not having to deal with additional family members. Kelsey, she could handle. On some strange level, she'd been prepared for her. Others, she was not.

"Well, you're not getting any judgment from me…" she said honestly. "I'll leave that to your mother, assuming she's hassling you about grandchildren."

This elicited laughs from both of them, which made Mary think she must be right on the money as far as James' second wife was concerned. She certainly knew how much Jinx had bleated on about being a grandmother before Norah had been born.

But, hearing them snicker was both eerie and enlightening. Lauren sounded like Brandi – gravelly, almost guttural, like her throat was coated with something rough. Kelsey's chuckle was oddly parallel to her own – a short bark, and more of an expression than a sound. It left Mary wondering about the noise Scott had made when he was amused. With a jolt, she realized she'd never actually heard him laugh.

"I was forty-five before I got hitched," she found herself contributing out of thin air to cover what might be a silence coming up. "Well, unless you count thirty-six hours when I was seventeen, but that's hardly one for the record books."

"I never wanted to get married…" Lauren volunteered sagely, and Mary admired her stick to such a decision. "I don't like to be tied down; I don't like having to answer to people…"

"I still think if she met the right guy, she'd change her tune, but she doesn't listen," Kelsey chimed in with a cunning smirk. "She'll die an old maid with her inkwells, and she'll be proud of it."

"Sounds like you're not against the rings and the big, 'I do…'" Mary observed, considering speaking up and saying she used to adamantly oppose any kind of wedding, but deciding against it. "But, you know, finding a guy that's worth all that song and dance is pretty heady business…"

"I have a boyfriend," Kelsey told her, a hint of something girlish sneaking into her tone. "He's kind of on again, off again, but there are possibilities…"

"I've had plenty of those," the inspector said, thinking of Raph and even Mark. "But, my husband is not really the 'off-again' type."

"What does he do?" the youngest wanted to know.

"He's a US Marshal, like me. That's how we met. We were partners for eight years before we hooked up."

"Wow."

"How old are your girls again?" Lauren broke in, draining the last of her juice while she waited for an answer.

"Norah's thirteen and Alice is six – almost seven," she proclaimed. "Alice is Marshall's daughter; Norah's dad is my ex-husband, Mark."

"Modern," Kelsey declared.

"Something like that."

"Of course, it's hard to _get_ more modern than our upbringing," Lauren ushered the pink elephant into the room, but she did it fairly gracefully, knowing they couldn't dance around the weirdness all night. "Between the Shannons and the Griffins, we should be on Oprah or something."

Mary didn't know what to say, and so she broke off another hunk of a bagel that she was not really hungry for and chewed it, trying to ruminate on something intelligent that could come out of her mouth. She didn't really want to talk about James; she thought they had covered him. What else was there to discuss? Kelsey had to remember him just as little as she did, but of course she had the days preceding his death to look back upon now. Lauren's memories were probably far richer and much more appealing. It was better not to go there, as Mary didn't want unresolved jealousy to start cropping up.

Luckily for her, Kelsey didn't look overly pleased with her older sister trying to hash out something so awkward. Perhaps it wasn't discomfiting for Lauren, but it was for them. Mary thought of Brandi and how she would've been able to talk about it without a problem as well. Even though she knew there was the same blood running in their veins, it still baffled her that they could be strangers for so many years and have the oddest things in common.

Lauren seemed to realize, in the quiet, that she had possibly traipsed into a minefield. Instead of running for the safety of the tents, she took another step forward, sniffing for bombs.

"I thought you'd be madder that we came here," she looked directly at Mary, showcasing eyes that were more jade than evergreen. "I wasn't sure if you'd let us in, since I didn't tell you I was bringing Kelsey. Brandi said that, last time, when you found out who I really was, you were pretty pissed."

"Well, I was," Mary was short and to the point. "But, things were different then. Dad was still alive – still out there. Brandi was nowhere near the upstanding citizen she is now…"

"Still," Lauren cut her off. "Scott said that when he came, you didn't give him the time of day," she wasn't placing blame, Mary understood, but stating a fact. "What makes this time so different? The whole reason I didn't tell you was because I was afraid you'd turn us away, and it was important to both of us to get to see you…"

"Well, props on the undercover mission," she snarked, but it didn't hold any heat. "But, people do grow up. I like to think I'm one of them. When you saw me before, I wasn't married, I didn't have any kids, my sister was still a mess, and Jinx was a raging alcoholic seconds away from driving her car into a drainage ditch…"

"I guess that's your way of saying it's not like that anymore."

"It's not," she agreed. "I got together with Marshall, I had Norah, Brandi turned things around and had kids of her own, my mom got help…"

"Jinx is doing well then?" Lauren surmised, migrating off the beaten track.

Mary saw no need to shift and fidget and make the truth into something it wasn't. There was no changing it. She knew that better than anyone.

"She was," past tense. "She was sober for twelve years. But, she died of liver failure – it'll have been four years in February."

It would've been more surprising if Lauren had demonstrated any level of shock, which she did not. In keeping with her balanced behavior, she merely blinked at the news and her eyes swiveled to the right to look at Kelsey, who had probably been briefed on Jinx and her drunken ways.

"I'm sorry," the oldest Griffin stated in an obligatory, but nonetheless genuine way. "I didn't know."

"There's no reason you would've," Mary let her off the hook. "But, more to the point, all those things – Jinx and her abstinence from alcohol included – kind of morphed me into the adult I always thought I was. I grew up thinking I was thirty years old, and in a lot of ways I was, and in a lot of ways I wasn't…" a hunch of her shoulders. "It's not like I just welcome everything with open arms these days – there's been some stuff going on around here lately that I haven't handled well at all…"

This produced raised eyebrows from her breakfast companions, both of them stopping mid-bite, but Mary opted not to get into specifics. They only had a few hours, after all, and likely would not really be interested in Mark's nuptials or his impending infant.

"But, as far as James Wily Shannon goes…"

There had been a time when she never could've admitted this so freely, all her cares tossed aside, the façade thrown down on the ground, but it felt good to be able to breathe a sigh of relief in such an area. As Marshall was constantly reminding her, she wasn't the little girl on the doorstep with the medallion around her neck anymore. She hadn't been for a long time.

"He's the past. He's gone. He left five kids behind, and I'd say we turned out pretty good." And then, to cut back on the notion that she was giving some sort of speech, "Unless you guys are gonna start asking me for money every week or something."

Another bout of laughter drew cracks in whatever tension there had been, although Mary noticed that Lauren wasn't looking completely convinced that all of James' offspring had come out the other side all right. There was still Scott, after all, and while he was not the only casualty of the convict's transgressions, he had certainly suffered the deadliest outcome. With only three years between them, Lauren had known their one brother better than any of them, and it would stand to reason that she still missed him.

"We're not moochers," Kelsey promised in response to Mary's jab. "Lauren's got being dirt poor down to a science."

"Yeah, too bad you don't," she shot back. "You're the one who's moving _with_ mom to her new place in Miami…"

Rather than touch on this, Kelsey changed the subject, "Mary, what's Brandi like? I was hoping to meet her too, but Lauren said something about her being busy with her kids…"

"Yeah, her husband travels, so they make the most of the weekends," the inspector clarified. "She actually said she might pop by a little bit later if you guys are still here, so you can meet the face behind the myth…"

"I didn't make her sound like some legend or anything," Lauren took up for herself. "Certainly no more than Jinx – she was the one who fainted the last time I came here."

"Well, don't rule anything out when it comes to Brandi," Mary cautioned with a raised eyebrow. "She may be all 'mom' and 'manager' these days, but that doesn't mean she can't stir things up when you least expect it."

"Sounds like you," Lauren teased Kelsey. "Always getting stuck in something."

"Nice…" the other muttered disdainfully.

"Brandi has kids too?" Lauren spoke over the younger as though she had not said a word. "Girls, like you? Boys?"

"Both," Mary told her. "Robyn is twelve – a year younger than my oldest. Max is nine; he's in the third grade."

While she gave the deeper details on her niece and nephew, not that Brandi couldn't take care of gushing if she ever showed up; there was the sound of a door opening down the hall. Mary heard it through one ear, and her senses went on high alert, although rationally she knew there was no need for her to be nervous. It seemed Marshall, even in his infinite patience, had kept the girls occupied for as long as he could. Not waiting for the go-ahead text, he had decided to take his chances and broach the confines of the kitchen, and Mary just wondered in a tiny corner of her brain what he would think once he discovered there were not just two of them sharing juice and pastries.

Norah, fortunately, had managed to get herself dressed, even though on a typical Sunday she would've lounged around in her pajamas until noon. Marshall, too, had smartened himself up, wearing jeans and a pale blue T-shirt that brought out the cobalt in his eyes. Only Alice was still in her sleepwear, nestled in her father's arms, apparently still too fearful to walk the hardwood if she could avoid it. She'd slept well the night before, but had complained of her incisions being sore this morning, which was to be expected.

Mary did what she could not to look startled by the appearance of her three favorite people; because it would only give the impression that she had something to hide. Marshall did indeed look curious, Alice more skeptical, while Norah almost hungry – she knew who Lauren was and how Mary dealt with half-siblings. Maybe she, like her mother, could guess who the second individual was and was anticipating an explosion once the Griffins departed.

"Well, hello ladies…" Marshall introduced himself smoothly, wearing a rascally smirk that said he was perfectly delighted by something unpredicted occurring. "What a trio we have here."

"Hello," Lauren reciprocated, a little baffled by his choice of words, but then again, she wasn't used to him.

"Hi," Kelsey gave a wave. "You must be Marshall?"

"That I am indeed," he substantiated, sticking out his hand as best he could with Alice on his hip. "Charmed. But, pictures indicate that you are not the famous Lauren…"

"Famous?" the woman herself choked with a pointed glance at Mary.

"Ignore him; he talks just to hear the sound of his own voice."

"No…" Kelsey giggled, possibly because Marshall could be fairly adorable when he wasn't being a dork. "I'm Kelsey – Kelsey Griffin."

"Griffin, you say."

"Listen, doofus…" Mary interjected before he could really pick up steam. "We all know you're a genius and that you can connect the dots."

"Can I?"

"Yes, you can," she said almost sternly. "She is who you think she is."

It felt strange to be having this discussion right in front of the person they were talking about, but Mary wasn't in the mood for closed doors and whispered conversation. She'd done that before. Holed up with Jinx in the bathroom with the shower running, being told Lauren was not an FBI agent, but James' 'other' daughter, and then again with Brandi when she'd pulled her into the office to snarl about Scott being their brother. Neither experience had been a good one, and for all she'd said to Norah lately about making an effort, she knew it was her turn. She could scream and shout and act selfish and envious later, if she wanted.

"Well, in that case…" Marshall went on, no doubt powered on by Mary's strangely serene approach to the situation. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Kelsey Griffin. One can always use another sister."

"That's debatable," his wife claimed, but she batted kind eyes toward Kelsey to show she was only fooling around – at least in part. "And, if you're such a gentleman, are you going to get around to making nice with Lauren?"

"I was getting to that," he insisted, turning to the highlighted blonde and offering his fingers once again. "Lovely to meet you, Lauren. Marshall Mann."

"Same here." And then, likely speaking with a writer's heart, "Are you always so lyrical when you speak, or was that just for our benefit?"

"How sweet it is to hear that my words are 'lyrical' rather than 'coma-inducing,'" he winked at Mary.

"He's still taken," she pointed out, not debating his allegation, but not touching on it either. "These are my heathens…" she pointed to the girls, both of whom grinned at being referred to in such a callous manner; they knew it came from love. "The blonde is Norah; the little one is Alice."

Hellos were exchanged once again, Marshall still looking wholeheartedly enthralled with the idea that Mary had been sitting and talking with her two half-sisters for the better part of an hour without having a stroke. If she played her cards right, he would be praising her maturity left and right once the house emptied out, something she thoroughly looked forward to. She sometimes enjoyed her ability to be so crass and acerbic; it made her feel alive and in charge, and she knew for a fact it turned him whether he said so or not. But, past experience told her that if she stepped up and did the right thing, even if she didn't like it, the rewards could be even greater as far as Marshall was concerned. He practically salivated when she took the high road.

"You're really sisters?" Alice was saying when Mary tuned back in, not leaving Marshall's grasp, but still as friendly as ever. "You're mommy's sisters?"

"Yep," Lauren nodded. "Kelsey and I are full sisters – I don't know if you know what that means."

"It means they have the same mom and the same dad," Norah pointed out, showing her worldly side.

"Who's your mom?" Alice questioned curiously.

"Her name is Francis."

Ginger and Francis, Mary thought with a mental chuckle. Whatever James' faults, he had certainly picked interesting women to spend his life with. The names alone proved that.

"So, then, who's your dad?" Alice pressed.

"Same as my dad," Mary piped up, wondering if a first grader could really understand all the intricacies. "Their mom is Francis and my mom was Jinx. But, their dad was James and mine was too. So, Kelsey and Lauren are full siblings, but I'm their half-sibling." Going over it again in her mind, she took a stab at clarification, "Does that make sense?"

"Is Brandi your full sibling?"

"Yes."

"Because Jinx was her mommy and James was her daddy?"

"Yes."

"And James was all of your guys' daddy?"

"Yep."

"That's weird."

All three women laughed, but it was the pure and honest truth. It was weird even to them; Mary couldn't imagine how strange it was to piece through it as a six-year-old. It was a good thing Scott hadn't been brought into the fold; it just would've made things more confusing. But, with all the talk of halves, Mary should've guessed what would've come out of Alice's mouth next, but she didn't even mind. They were speaking in the technical sense this time, and not to injure feelings.

"Norah and me are half sisters," she shared with a look to the older. "We have the same mommy, but her dad is Mark."

"Kind of like us," Kelsey assured her to show she was getting it.

"And, Norah is going to have another half brother or sister…" she went on, surprising Mary. "Her dad is getting married and he and Jill are having a baby."

"That'll be fun," Kelsey countered again, probably not accustomed to speaking to children, but Norah was quick to show her that she didn't have to be handled with kid gloves.

"Not really," though she probably meant it, she smiled as she said it. "But, I guess it won't be too bad."

This was the first time Mary had heard her daughter speak even semi-positively about all the changes happening on her father's side of the family, without throwing a tantrum or stalking off to her bedroom to brood. Sure, she wasn't jumping for joy, but who would expect her to? She was still thirteen years old, and babies could only be so exciting when they came from your father and his new wife.

And yet, maybe Marshall had been right. Maybe seeing her mother make an effort with her distant relatives had sparked something in her – it was that whole, actions speak louder than words mentality. Seeing was believing, and right now, she was able to view with her own two eyes that Mary was opening up and it wasn't killing her. As the woman herself had said before, James might've screwed himself up pretty badly, but given all that the Shannons and the Griffins had been through; there was success on both sides. That was a celebration in and of itself.

And Norah had to know that life with Mark's new child wasn't going to compare to Mary's growing up. There was light at the end of the tunnel – hope for something more than a tiny creature that would demand nothing but attention. He or she would be something else to love, and how much horror could come from that?

There were matching stories at every corner; women with common threads everywhere you looked. Mary had no plans for slumber parties and wound-washing with Lauren and Kelsey – there was no replacing Brandi, after all – but this was a start. A start for her, just as it was a start for Norah.

"It will be an education," Marshall was nothing if not philosophical, wrapping up everyone's situations in a single statement, clapping Norah's shoulder in a fatherly way. "And, I may be a biased man…"

"You?" Mary scoffed.

"But, anybody with a little piece of the Shannon women in them can only go far in life."

"That's awfully optimistic of you, Poindexter."

"What can I say?"

He held up his single hand and glanced from Mary to Lauren to Kelsey to Norah to Alice and finally back to his wife one last time, highlighting only with his scurrying eyes that she was opening and stepping through more doors than either had ever thought possible.

With another wink, "That optimism must be catching."

XXX

 **A/N: I've never written Lauren in any of my other stories, so I figured this was a good time, and I've always wanted to invent that other sister out there, mentioned in the only episode Lauren was in on the show.**

 **Two chapters left – well, one chapter, and the epilogue. And, the epilogue, as always, is so long it's not even funny.**


	45. Chapter 45

**A/N: Last official chapter before the epilogue!**

XXX

"I think winter is here."

"Holy Christ, Marshall. It's barely November. We just had Halloween. Don't go busting out the cornucopias and turkeys and holly and ornaments."

"Turn on the radio; I think they're playing Christmas music on a few select stations."

"Just kill me now."

"Such a delicate, fragile flower you are."

"When my boot is lodged firmly up your left nostril, you can talk about how delicate I am."

"Where is my white flag when I need one?"

With this last statement, Marshall slunk up from where he had been sprawled on the living room floor with WITSEC documents, his eyes peeking over the couch cushions to where his wife was filling in forms with her glasses sliding down her nose. Although both of them were exhausted and had done nothing but cater to the Griffin girls and then their own girls the entire day, the work could not afford to be put off. Both had missed far too much time at the office with Alice being in the hospital and, as it was Sunday night, they were burning the midnight oil trying to catch up. It had already been decided that Mary would stay home with their younger daughter the next day and Marshall would rejoin Stan at the Sunshine Building to alleviate some of the burden. Being that it was after eleven, Norah and Alice had long since gone to bed, but that didn't mean their parents could succumb to sleep just yet.

But, it appeared that the acting chief was itching to do a little procrastinating, even with his various papers still spread in an artistic arc on the floor. The way his eyes were peeping over the edge of the sofa at his wife said to her that he was in a naughty mood, much as he'd been the day before, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. There was too much to do, she was too tired, and had too much on her mind.

Nonetheless, in spite of everything that was swirling in her brain, she had an odd feeling of contentment mingling in her belly. She'd thought there would be a downturn after Lauren and Kelsey left the house, but it had never come. She'd gone out as coolly as she'd come in, or relatively so. It was hard to say where this newfound acceptance was coming from, but seeing Marshall's sweet face gave her a bit of a clue as to where she'd learned how to open her arms a little wider.

"Use words, not motions, Marshall," she requested blandly, averting her eyes back to her papers propped on her knee. "Honestly. You're not a mime."

"I could learn," he decided, still all eyes and no mouth; his knees had to be aching. "I bet I could get that box routine down in a snap."

"Spare me."

"Oh, you needn't be so grumpy…" he dropped the silly voice and appeared all the way, dropping back slightly on his haunches when Mary wouldn't play his game. "Take a break from the studying for a moment…"

"This isn't _studying_ ," she informed him snottily. "What test can the academy give me that I haven't already aced?"

"Your humility is touching," he remarked dryly. "But, seriously, put the books away. You're looking a little too much like Madam Librarian."

Mary wrinkled her nose, trying to grasp the reference without him telling her right away; all she knew was that her glasses, which always gave him such peculiar pleasure, had prompted the comment.

While she was thinking, he reached out and slipped the documents away all by himself, which did not earn him a slap on the wrist for once. He placed them on the coffee table, spellbound just watching her think when she was done up in such a scholarly manner. As if her drawstring pants and a T-shirt screamed 'professor.'

"Fiddler on the Roof?" she finally guessed, knowing she had not put her finger on it, and Marshall proved her right.

"Music Man."

"Ah."

But, in retrospect, Mary did not understand why she hadn't won his version of Jeopardy. She was not exactly a musical buff, but the Music Man, with its seventy-six trombones and Wells Fargo Wagon, should've struck a chord in her. It had been a long time since she'd thought about it, but reminiscing about it now, she realized it was enough to make her abandon her work just as Marshall had suggested.

"The one with Amaryllis," she stated aloud, removing her glasses even if it came as a disappointment to her husband.

"Very good," he praised, and this caused him to leave the floor and crawl up next to her on the couch. "I thought you'd remember."

"Took me a minute. I'm getting old."

"Nah. Preoccupied, maybe, but not old."

"Well, since we almost named our kid after that Amaryllis, you'd think I'd be quicker on the uptake."

He, too, was harking back to the days when Mary had been with child, toward the end on bed rest, and many afternoons visited by Robyn, who had been dragged to a whole host of musicals by Jinx. After seeing the fated Music Man, she had insisted to her aunt that the baby be named after the principle child in the show, but there was no way Mary was going to agree to go there. And yet, she must've taken some portion of it to heart, because it had stuck in one way or another.

It was Marshall who spoke of their reasoning before his partner could get there.

"If you take the 'Mary' out of Amaryllis, then what do you have?"

She echoed him quietly, "Alice."

Without thinking, she found herself roaming across the couch and under Marshall's arm as a means of filling the silence that followed. It was bizarre that five minutes earlier they had been trading their usual barbs, and now both had much more they were pondering over, but that tended to be how they functioned. It was a game of back and forth; when you had the professions they'd had for so many years, you had to be able to turn emotions on and off like a switch. By the same token, you could fly from one end of the spectrum to the other without a second thought, as they'd just done.

Mary could only speak for herself, as she didn't really know what Marshall was musing over – it might simply be his daughter, given that they'd been discussing where her moniker had originated from. It could be her, it could be her most recent plight in the hospital, it could be family as a whole. For Mary, it was a combination of things – her children, the past, the future, her father, Jinx, and a whole host of other complications besides. It had been a very odd week.

Marshall's arm looped around her so she could lay sheltered in his chest, his free hand playing idly in her hair, was what enabled her to open up.

"Seems like so long ago…" she reflected, closing her eyes for a moment to imagine those days of yore when she had been confined to her bed, a belly the size of Everest, and three little kids squealing every five seconds. "Can you believe we ever lived that way?"

She knew she didn't have to specify; Marshall would be able to link Alice's beginning to everything else that had been occurring at that time. He was so intelligent that way.

"Well, we were younger then," he offered plainly, his fingers like that of a skillful pianist in her hair. "More vigorous, some might say. It does indeed seem like it almost happened in another lifetime. The kids were so small…"

"Max barely spoke," the woman pointed out. "But, good God, did you hear him the other night?"

"What, on Halloween?"

"Yeah…"

"Yes, he was quite vocal," Marshall concurred. "I wonder if his little – or, not so little – outburst in the emergency room gave him some much needed confidence. Burst the floodgates, so to speak. It can be scary to hear your own voice, but sometimes when you do…"

"There's no going back."

"Exactly."

It was so comforting to be of one mind with him, Mary thought. She could hardly remember a time when they had not been that way.

There had been her existence as a wretched, browbeaten little girl that was devoured by guilt and mourning and an overload of responsibility, all left by her father – baggage that was so heavy, and yet so hard to let go of. The days before Marshall always seemed so very empty.

Even those in-between years when she had been rising in the ranks of WITSEC with only herself to think about, Marshall had been her rock. She might've never dared to say it for fear of what admitting affection would lead to, but the thought had always been planted in her mind. When the bullets were flying, the knives were flashing, the phones were ringing, the witnesses were screaming; she knew the one person she could always bolt to was her trusted partner.

Then there was now – she had no mom and no dad, but she had so many other things. She had people that constantly reached for her hand in the dark, in times of calamity and in times of conquest – people whose fingers she also grappled for when the shadows began to close around her. Her husband, her kids, her friends – though, few and far between – and her sister. Even sisters, plural, as the case might have been.

There was comfort in that too – that Marshall was no longer the sole surviving member of her circle of support. Even if he was still the one she chased after when the chips were truly down.

"It still just seems like forever ago that he was toddling around here with nothing but big eyes and a closed mouth…" Mary got back to her nephew rather than drudge up a more sensitive topic right away. "Norah falling off the monkey bars every other day, Robyn spinning through the kitchen in her tutus like some kind of tornado…"

"There is nothing like living, breathing children to make things appropriately lively."

"Can you picture doing it now, though?" Mary proposed with a slow shake of her head, dislodging Marshall's expert fingers momentarily. "Doing it all over? That's where Mark's going to be in another couple of months…"

"Yes," short and sweet.

"But, a thirteen year old and a newborn…" she gave a soft, low whistle. "Hell, that almost seems more courageous than having three running around with another on the way," returning to that summer seven years earlier before Alice had been born. "You're right, we were younger back then – but, Mark isn't."

"No," Marshall still went for the simplistic approach. "But, I don't think Mark is who you're really fixating on at the moment," he was right, as always. "I think its Norah. Not to mention all that dialogue about using one's voice. Subtle, yes, but I can read between the lines…"

"Then, your conscious must be ahead of my subconscious, because I don't know where I was going with all that…"

He was kind enough to help her out, "Has Norah been utilizing _her_ voice recently? Can that account for her even temperament sticking around for more than an hour? Much as I would like to believe it has to do with her warming up to Alice, I think it is more than that."

How could she deny him the truth? He was always so honest with her, and his restrained speech said that he already had an inkling that Mary had wormed her way to the center of Norah's most up to date issues. Even if she lied, he would know, and he would probably keep pestering her.

But, the inspector suddenly couldn't help feeling a little sympathy for Jill. She wanted to keep Norah's secrets for Norah, and knowing how she had reacted to Mark being in the loop, it seemed like suicide to spill to Marshall. Having her daughter be angry at her after they'd broken so many barriers would be so many steps in the wrong direction. Jill had kept quiet even when she'd known better. Maybe Mary could too, if a little more shrewdly.

"Did you and Norah have a bit of a chat?"

There it was – the direct question. It was veiled in the yes-or-no format, but Mary knew she wouldn't get out that easily.

"Yeah," she murmured, already feeling like she was selling out just by revealing that much. "Yesterday morning, after Mark dropped her off."

"What about?"

She opened her mouth to respond or, at the very least, to evade, but she hedged. It seemed the safest option. She wouldn't make anything up, but she wouldn't sell Norah up the river either.

"Will you hate me if I don't tell you?"

As if Marshall would say anything other than, "Of course not."

"It's just that…" Mary sighed, her head sinking further into his chest, in a kind of sleepy daze thanks to her maestro of a husband dragging his fingers through her blonde tresses. "She barely let _me_ in on everything, and it sounds like she already thinks there are more people in her business than she'd like."

"Mark and Jill?"

"Good guess."

"Well, I am a bit psychic when it comes to these matters."

"I want you to know," Mary needed this to be clear. "I'll ask her how she feels about you being clued in, okay?"

"Take your time," he was a patient man. "I don't wish to rock the boat."

Even without her gossiping all of the niceties of Norah's life as a middle school student, Mary had a pretty astute idea that Marshall was well in the loop already. He could put two and two together; he could deduce that his step-daughter was far from popular, even if he didn't know it was because of a confrontation with a bra. He also knew what girls her age went through in terms of growing up; he didn't need Mary to spell it out.

"I really don't know how much I helped…" Mary whispered in a surprisingly meek tone. "I didn't plan anything; I just blathered on and said whatever popped into my head, and that's never been favorable in the past…"

"I wouldn't sell yourself so short," the chief cautioned. "I think Norah's new outlook speaks volumes. Sometimes sharing is the best medicine."

"I thought that was laughter."

He chuckled, "True. Still, perhaps opening one's heart is a close second. I'm sure she feels better now that you know – whatever it is."

"Mmm…"

"And, I commend you for getting anything out of her, for being someone she can go to. Your generous approach to change lately has been quite admirable."

This was certainly something Mary thought she would never hear about herself, and it didn't mean quite as much coming from Marshall – he was her husband and, being perpetually smitten with her, he couldn't be relied upon to be impartial. Still, it was nice to hear it, and it brought an understated, soft smile to her face that she wished he could see, but he was still busy with her hair.

"And, I don't just mean with Norah," he continued when she didn't add anything but a sweet exhale. "But, with the sisters Griffin too."

"Yeah…" she'd known he wasn't only talking about the thirteen year old, but had been curious to see if he was brave enough to bring up James' later offspring. "I don't know if I'd count on that to last, especially if they start coming around here more often…"

"It doesn't seem as though they will be. Miami is far away, after all."

"But, the Shannon instinct is to run. They could scamper away from Florida to here as easily as Brandi fled New Mexico for palm trees."

"Perhaps," he allowed. "But, if you don't mind my asking, in all seriousness, are you really okay after today? Lauren plus Kelsey is a lot to absorb," as if she didn't know. "It's all right if you're not okay, you know."

At being given the leeway to be egocentric and petty, Mary really wanted to take him up on the offer; she was ingrained with the need to push and pull when James was involved. He had been such a force in her life for so long, and yet when she tried to summon up some kind of resentment, nothing came. All she could think of was Norah, and how she had advised her so staunchly not to let one moment define her life.

Sure, teenage boys mocking and pointing in the hall didn't compare to one's father up and leaving the family, but those who were taunting weren't her only problem. She was having her share of daddy and sibling difficulties as well, and she was clawing her way back to clarity. She'd done it a lot faster than her mother.

"I don't really know what I am…" she found herself telling Marshall, turning her face so that she could hear his heart beating in his ribcage – a fixed and sturdy sound. "They stood there on the doorstep and I felt blindsided, but that was really it…"

"Uh-huh…" he grunted, inviting her to go on.

"I mean, maybe I'm a little…" finding the right phrase was crucial, and yet there really wasn't one to sum it all up in a single slogan. "…Jealous? Hurt? I don't even know that that's it…"

"You don't have to be just one thing."

"I know," she assured him. "But, trying to figure it out and examine my feelings is not really my style, and I don't want it to be. Can't I just be conflicted and leave it at that?"

"You can."

"But, I'm not sure I am _that_ conflicted," she turned right around and contradicted herself. "Yeah, I guess I still feel a little bit replaced – that old feeling of wanting to be my dad's 'one and only,'" the thought made her prickle with embarrassment now; she was too adult to be so childish about her father's misdemeanors. "But, not like I used to…"

"That's a good thing, I would surmise," this was a man that believed her, that believed she wasn't just covering up some deeper remorse at finally meeting Kelsey. "You're moving on."

"Yeah, and it took me how long?"

"It doesn't matter," she should've anticipated him saying that. "Time is immaterial; you're getting there, and that's what's important."

"It just seems like such wasted energy to still feel slighted," this was the most accurate testimonial she had spoken since they'd begun. "I'm not seven, I'm not ten, I'm not eighteen – I'm not even thirty-five…"

"You and me both."

Mary chortled at the second reference to their ages, even though she wasn't sure it was meant to be funny. She just loved being able to share things with him – anything, even small things. Growing old together was one of them.

"He's dead – he's gone; he's been gone for twelve years," very nearly repeating what she had expressed to her half-siblings that morning. "I can't change who he was, I can't change what he did; I can't change who Lauren and Scott and Kelsey are. They're his children. Crying and screaming and wallowing won't make them any less than they are…"

"It doesn't make you any less his child either, you realize."

Marshall said this to placate her, to lift her up in some uncanny way, to give her that sensation of feeling special and unique that she had craved from James for so long. She appreciated it, even when she claimed to have risen above the need to please a man who had done nothing but harm her.

"Whatever he was, you were many things to him that they were not," the taller pointed out, wrapping his arms even tighter her around her until it was almost too taut, but he never pushed the envelope any further. "Just as _they_ were things to him that _you_ were not."

"I don't want it to be this contest."

"I'm not saying it needs to be," he corrected. "I'm just saying you have your memories and they have theirs – some good, some bad. You were his oldest, his firstborn. You were the one he entrusted to look after Jinx and Brandi. You were the one he ate Oreos with in the morning and took for ice cream late at night. You were the one he wrote letters to. You were the one he came to when he was in trouble…"

"The one he died with," Mary finished ominously.

"Like I said," he echoed. "Both good and bad."

"It isn't just about him though," she wanted to make sure he understood where she was coming from, even if she couldn't get her words in the right order or say them the way she really wanted to because she wasn't as poetic as he. "It's the whole sibling thing. I don't want to hate them from afar for something they don't have any control over. They can't help being his kids anymore than I can. Just like…"

Here, she didn't complete her sentence, because she realized how crass and throwaway it was going to sound, even if she didn't mean for it to come out that way. She was trying to draw on an equivalence that she definitely spotted, even if it was not exactly the same.

But, Marshall wasn't going to let her get away with trailing off – he didn't care if she bungled and scrabbled. He knew they'd get to the finish line in the end; they always did.

"Just like what?"

It was really very moronic of her to think that Marshall would judge her after all these years. His compassion and his empathy knew no bounds. It was what made him so utterly remarkable. When she looked at his handsome face day after day, watched his gentle gestures, listened to his beautiful words, she knew she'd never imagined when she really was that forgotten first grader that there was a man who embodied such a wealth of splendor. The eighth wonder of the world, that was him.

"Well…like Norah can't help being a sister to Alice and to Mark's kid." And then, she rushed to illuminate her connection, "She can't help it, but she shouldn't want to – she has a chance that I didn't have, a chance to be close to Alice and to Mark's baby. It took Brandi and me so long, and I don't want it to be that way for her."

"I think you're teaching her to be open to possibilities, Mare – that you're setting a new example," he said as he laid his lips to her temple, letting them linger there for a moment. "You're right; she has the opportunity to build bridges if she wants. It won't be perfect, because nothing is, but the environment is rich for it. When everyone is trying, it's everything."

"Mark loves her…" it was like she was attempting to convince herself, which was unnecessary. "He's not James. He'll do this the right way…"

"I love hearing that you have such confidence in him," Marshall did indeed adore when she talked about others so magnanimously. "Uniting as a team works wonders as well."

"I'll slip up from time to time you know – get mad at him for some stupid thing."

"And, I'm sure he'll do the same to you," the man noted. "Nobody expects it to be sunshine and rainbows at every second. It's unrealistic; you know that better than anyone."

"It's not just Mark that loves her…" this suddenly seemed vastly essential, and it probably wasn't, and yet she rolled over on his chest so that they were belly-to-belly and she was staring up into his stunning, shining eyes. "It's you."

"Yes…" there was nary a word about him not being her father; he took the accolade for what it was. "I do. I love her very much. So much some days that it hurts."

It was this statement; completely selfless and said so naturally, that caused Mary to blink like she was a deer caught in the headlights, staring at him like he couldn't possibly be real. He had announced many wonderful things in their twenty plus years together, a handful of them more eloquent than claiming his esteem for her daughter caused him physical ache.

But, the power in this one was different, somehow. And, rather than analyze it to pieces, Mary just let surge forth exactly what was on her mind, her fingers tracing the patterns of his ribs while she pressed her face closer and closer to his.

"You're amazing. I don't understand how you can be this amazing."

"Let's not overdo it, shall we…?"

"You _are_ ," she spoke right over him, stressing the gravity of her opinion. "How are you like this? How are you able to welcome everything in so freely, without any work? I've been married to you for seven years and I still haven't figured it out, and I've known you a lot longer than that…"

"Let's get something clear," he managed to inch in, taking one of her migrating fingers and then her whole hand, bringing it to rest inside his fist. "It is not _work_ to cherish Norah. I love her because I love her – there's no elaborate explanation for it; it's just the way it is…"

"You mean you never question why you're so head-over-heels for a kid that doesn't share a single strand of your DNA, when I can't even seek out the two sisters I've had floating around in the world for the past three decades?"

"No, I don't question it," he persisted without even faltering. "And, it's not a matter of one of us being a better person than the other, like I know you're thinking…"

"Yeah, right…"

"It has to do with where we came from and who we made ourselves into and what other bodies crossed our paths along the way," his dictation sounded like it was straight out of a book, but it couldn't have been more genuine. "It was easier for me to be open because I'd never been scarred like you were."

"Back to dear old dad…"

"But, even if we don't consider our backgrounds, we are just not the same people, Mary," it was charitable of him not to speak as though this were obvious. "I like to think it is what makes us so marvelously compatible."

There was a sneaky shine in his eye now, and she allowed him to stretch his long neck to give her a proper kiss. She let him take over this one, permitting herself to be beguiled as his fingers tickled up and down her back, playing gorgeous rhythms on her spine.

When they parted, he was grinning in an almost drunken way, but his wife wasn't letting him off the hook just yet.

"I still think you are not of this earth," maintaining her steadfast belief. "Hell, when Mark's baby finally shows it's wrinkly little face, it'll probably take me the better part of the year to warm up to him, and you'll have fallen for the kid face first in the first five minutes."

"Babies are not exactly a trial to love," he murmured softly. "I remember how it was with Norah, looking at her in the NICU with you. No amount of money would've kept me away."

"But, it's so automatic with you – like a reflex. I don't know if I could be so liberal if I had a step-daughter."

"You would if she were like Norah – clever and witty and smart and sassy and full of heart just when you least expect it…"

"And, what if she weren't all those things?" Mary pressured. "What if she were rude and obnoxious and selfish, like we all know she is sometimes…"

"I'd still love her."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

Leaning in so that his mouth was right next to her ear, he whispered the final pledge, the real reason he could never pull himself out of the family they so beautifully made, faults and all. Deep down, he knew Mary wasn't looking for him to admit that Norah could be tough to be around or hard to devote yourself to. It was reassurance she needed, reassurance that still beat erratically in her chest when she remembered the father who had walked out on a girl that Marshall himself could never shy away from.

"I'd love her because she belongs to you. And, I can't picture my life without either of you in it."

"Mmm…"

"You, or Alice, or any of the rest of the wild and crazy Shannons, big and small. A life like that is no life at all…"

Mary was so occupied by initiating the kiss this time that she didn't hear the pattering footsteps in the hall.

"It hurts; don't pull on me!"

"Will you be quiet? They're going to hear us."

"You're hurting me!"

"Fine, I'll stop; but, hurry the hell up…"

"You said we shouldn't say that."

"No, I said _you_ shouldn't. Now, get down on the floor and shut your mouth."

"I don't want to sit on the ground; it gives me a bellyache."

"Well, then, you can sit in my lap, but you better not tell anyone, and you better stop talking."

"Okay…"

Just outside the bathroom door, where they could be under the cover of darkness but still see what was going on in the living room, Norah crouched on the hardwood, eventually reverting to a cross-legged position so that she could set Alice in the bowl. Extending her hand upward, she pulled her little sister down with relative ease, mindful not to jostle her sensitive stitches, which had already been given a workout by traveling the twenty or so feet into the hall.

Alice was a little big for Norah's lap; her legs jutted out in front of her and her head knocked into the other's chin, but it was the best they could do. Norah wrapped her arms around her without even thinking, considering it a matter of convenience and nothing more. She was surprised to feel Alice snuggle in more securely once she was settled, so they were resting cheek-to-cheek.

"Can you see them?" Norah whispered.

Alice giggled softly; hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, "They're kissing."

"Don't be such a baby about it."

"You said they'd be dancing."

"They will. I bet you anything."

"How would you even know? You don't even know what they're talking about."

"Trust me. I know how mom gets when she has anything to do with her dad's side of the family. Marshall will blubber all over her and get her all moony-eyed so that she forgets why she was upset in the first place, and then they'll dance. Just like they did that one time I told you about."

"Mommy never acts like that," Alice persevered in an adamant whisper. "I don't care if her sisters were here; there's no way she's going to start being a ballerina."

"I didn't say that, dingus. Don't you listen?"

"It's mean to call names, Norah."

"Shush," she hushed it directly into her ear which, unfortunately, made her laugh again because it tickled. "If you'd stop your chattering, we could hear them."

The brunette heeded the advice this time, but there wasn't anything to heighten your ears for. Either they were too far away or speaking too quietly, because the girls couldn't discern a single word. Even once they wrapped up the kissing, they were nearly nose-to-nose, and although their lips were moving, nothing discernible came out.

Yet, even at a distance, Norah could see that her mother was smiling, her cheeks pink under the soft light of the lamp, hair tousled where Marshall had pulled his fingers through it. Marshall himself looked just as sophisticated and larger than life than ever, eyes journeying skyward, to the side, and many times onto his wife's face with the most carefree of glances.

When Alice couldn't stay mum another second, her big sister was prepared to clap her hand in the way, but she took half a second to listen instead.

"Mommy looks really happy."

Norah stated what she considered to be the obvious, "She's always happy when she's with Marshall. He's nuts about her."

"How come you think they fell in love?" she proposed, tilting her head to glance upward in order to receive this little bit of wisdom. "Mommy is so serious and daddy is so silly."

"I don't know…" the blonde shrugged, baffled to think the six year old would think her an expert in matters of the heart. "They just did. Marshall makes mom laugh, and she doesn't laugh that much. Mom is really strong and brave; she doesn't let anything bother her…"

"Daddy is brave too."

"Yeah, but not in the same way as mom," the teenager illustrated, thinking of the late grandfather she had met only once and would never be able to remember. "They're both brave at work and stuff, but mom is in other ways. She stands up when everybody else is falling down, you know? She's the leader. The boss."

Norah half-expected Alice to point out that Marshall was the boss in the most technical sense, but she didn't. It seemed that something unspoken between them was able to exemplify just what it was about Mary that made her such a lion in all the ways that counted and of a different breed than Marshall's more thick-skinned side. She'd had to start earlier and sustain her independence for much longer than him, which counted for a lot.

"I think Marshall likes that she's so tough. He wouldn't want to be married to a sissy. He doesn't just love her. He respects her."

"What does that mean?"

Norah felt so grown up dismissing it, "You'll understand when you're older."

"Not now?"

"Someday."

"I want to know now…"

"But, if I tell you now, you'll miss it. Look…"

Nodding her head beyond and hoping that Alice would turn off her voice for the last time, she gave her the window to the spectacle taking place in front of them – the image they had snuck out of their beds at midnight to fall witness to. Norah wasn't much for moonlit kisses and rocks being thrown at glass panes, men who scaled the balcony and produced bouquets of roses, women who fell to their knees swooning and dolled themselves up just to please the opposite sex.

But, she had-had a feeling this chilly Sunday night as she had lain in her bed; she had remembered what Alice had asked her in the hospital about tying the knot one day. At thirteen, she didn't have the muscle to really think about it beyond knowing she couldn't imagine giving herself over to another person when the risk of getting hurt was too great. And yet, as she'd buried under her covers in the dark, she had recalled her little sister's question about a marriage like that of her mother and her dearest, oldest, closest friend. A marriage like that – a friendship like that – was something to strive for. Something that was worth sticking your neck out for.

Her intuition had only deepened the longer she tried to go to sleep, the longer she thought about what Mary and Marshall were discussing in the living room, and knowing of all that had gone on in their world lately. There was leaving the past behind in more ways than one, there was trying to struggle through the present even when it was anything but easy, there was learning when to let go and when to hold on, there was teaching yourself to embrace whatever and whoever came trundling down the road, and not feeling poorly about it when it made you uncomfortable, so long as you kept trying. So long as you could say you had given it your best shot.

And, near as Norah could tell, that was what her mother had done. Even after she'd been left behind, laid bare and the worst kind of lonely, she had found it in her to redress and start again. If there was hope for her, there was hope for all of them, Norah included – for Mark's and Jill's new journey, for Max's poise, for Robyn's maturity, for Stan and Lia as they glided into the sunset, more content than any of the rest put together. They were constructing a reality for a fresh life to come into – unspoiled and clean and fully intact. Brother or sister or not, even Norah wouldn't wish for any child to feel their way into a world – into a family – that was severing at its seams.

"They're not dancing," Alice scoffed quietly. "They're just holding hands. You're wrong…"

"Am not. Look, they're standing up…"

"Are not."

"Are too."

"Are not."

"Are too, genius. Check it…"

And, before their very eyes – one pair a rich brown, the other a dazzling blue – they watched, Alice more openmouthed, as Mary and Marshall got to their feet in the closest of hugs. At first, Norah considered that-that might be all they were doing, but then she gave a smile of satisfaction as her mother's arms extended outward to make a circle with her husband's. Once their hands were intertwined, their feet began to shuffle, and there didn't need to be a single warble of music to give them the hum they needed to sway to.

Norah got such a kick out of watching her baby sister's awe at seeing Mary so unlike herself, so uninhibited and, secretly, she felt the same way. To shed your skin was audacious, in its way, even if you did it when no one was watching. The thirteen year old hoped she found it in herself to be as bold when she was grown, and that she would be lucky enough to do it with a man like Marshall.

"Told you so," she couldn't resist gloating as the duo continued to swing back and forth, gentle and slow, but cadenced nonetheless.

"How'd you know?" Alice murmured.

"Just did. If you were me, you might know too."

Their own delighted smiles took care of the rest – delight at the two inspectors affection for one another, as well as delight for themselves that they had managed to eavesdrop on such an intimate moment when they should be tucked into their beds. In the light from the room afar, their faces flickered in reserved, but quietly giddy joy – the first time in a long time they had looked anything like the sisters they were. It took true bliss to have them resemble one another in ways that they ordinarily never would. It was their smiles that made them match as the Shannons they both were underneath.

"Mommy is so pretty when she's happy."

Alice's remark was so simple, and yet Norah had never considered the magnitude of its truth. Mary was beautiful – she always had been, and she always would be – but, never was she so stunning as when she was in the presence of someone who brought all her best traits to the forefront and made her feel unique and rare and exceptional. The way she had wished for her father to do for so long. The way Norah had wished for so many to do for her before she had been able to confess her fears about being left in the dark. Her mother's guarantees of her family's support had been magic, and not just for Norah, but for herself as well.

And, with the comment about her looks, another epiphany came to Alice – the sweetest one she had uttered in awhile.

"She looks like you, Norah."

Abandoning her head and leading completely with her heart, for it was lovely to be called beautiful, she kissed Alice's curls and squeezed her around the middle.

"You look like her too, Alice. You're gorgeous."

"Not like you."

"Yeah, like me. And like mom. And Marshall. Like all of us."

And, it could not be denied that beauty, captured and free, was radiating in the air this night as Mary and Marshall marched to the beat of their own drums and their daughters looked on – as they tangoed their way to tomorrow, to a new dawn.

XXX

 **A/N: Nothing like a little bit of corniness to wrap things up. Only the epilogue left…but, it got so long it could probably be three chapters, but I squeeze it into one.**


	46. Epilogue

**A/N: Here is the epilogue…it may take the better part of your life to read it. Just kidding – but it is way too long. I know I always say that, but this time I am actually mad at myself for how long this got. I get certain things in my head that I really want to write, but then I will go back sometimes and regret that I acted on a whim and chose to include something that is extraneous or even pointless. Do with it what you will. If you're kind enough to read the whole thing, I hope you enjoy it.**

XXX

 **Five Months Later:**

XXX

It was the first Saturday in April, and Mary was astonished that it wasn't raining. For the past several years, her memories of the drippy month had included nothing but downpours, muddying their lawn and causing the grass to grow knee-high before May even arrived. Not only that, it made the days gloomy and long, as though spring would never truly arrive and they would skip right to summer with no stops in-between. From snow to eternal sunshine, that was how it usually went.

But, this April day, which happened to be the eighth, was sunny and clear, if not a little chilly. It certainly wasn't warm enough to open any windows without being frozen out, but when the breeze wasn't blowing, it was perfectly comfortable and put you in mind of even more pleasant days ahead. The budding trees out in the backyard were rippling what few leaves they had, with Knox tearing around in the grass trying to stalk poor, unsuspecting butterflies and bumblebees. Mary chuckled at his antics, unable to help being amused by his zealousness.

In fact, other than the dog, she had the entire residence to herself for the first time in what felt like forever. She was trying to use the opportunity to get caught up on some work, but continued to become distracted by Knox's barking and galumphing around in search of something she couldn't even see. Marshall and Alice had gone out to the bookstore in search of some new bedtime tales, and had said something about grabbing ice cream on the way home, promising to get Mary a pint of her favorite flavor.

Norah was at Mark's new place for the weekend, generously offering to help put together the finishing touches on the nursery. Sometimes, she did it grudgingly, but when the mood struck her right, she could pick out blankets and curtains and stuffed animals with the best of them. Though Mary was glad she was adjusting, she had cautioned her against going. Jill was two days past due and more spherical than one could imagine. Mary thought that, surely, she had never been such an enormous size, and everyone around her assured her of the same notion – she'd not been of Jill's heft, but even bigger.

And then, as though just thinking of her had summoned her presence, Mary's phone went off on the table beside her. She saw immediately that it was Norah, who had recently become more attached to her cell phone, and she answered without any feeling of foreboding in her soul.

"Hey, Bug. What's up?"

Truthfully, she was glad for a more proper diversion from her WITSEC life, and she half-hoped Norah had something immensely essential to discuss. It was Saturday, after all, and Mary enjoyed her recreation and laziness as much as the next person.

"Mom, I think you should come over here."

So much for recreation. Any relaxed sensation that had settled in her bones immediately whooshed out of her at the panic in Norah's voice. Sitting up straighter, pressing the phone to her ear so she could not miss a single word, she swallowed down a lump in her throat.

"Come over where?" she was proud of how even tempered she came off, even if that was not how she felt inside. "Are you still at your dad's?"

"Yeah, but he had to go meet a client with a big crack in one of their solar panels. He said he'd be up on the roof and wouldn't answer his phone for a little while. I tried him anyway, but he's not picking up."

"Well, what do you need?" Mary bypassed everything about her ex-husband to get to the root of things. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine…"

The inspector didn't miss the wavering of Norah's vocal chords, "You don't sound fine."

"I am. I'm fine," she declared more assertively. "But, Jill's not. Or, I guess she probably is, but she thinks she's having the baby, and I don't know what to do."

The casualness with which this was reported might have made Mary laugh if her heart hadn't been about to crawl up her throat. Only a teenager would say that a woman was 'having a baby' as though it were happening right on the kitchen floor, right that very second. But, she couldn't expect Norah to use terms like 'in labor' or start spouting off about contractions. She might be Marshall's step-daughter, but she wasn't well-versed in such things.

Meanwhile, Mary did her best to keep calm. There was really nothing to freak out about. If Marshall were here, he'd be telling her right then that labor was as natural as blinking. She tried to remind herself that-that was still the case, even if anything involving childbirth made her squirmy. It stood to reason that if she'd been able to handle watching Robyn's entrance from the sidelines, she could handle anything, but that had been twelve years ago. Long enough to almost forget.

"Why does she think she's having the baby?" Mary repeated the phrasing almost exactly. "Is she in pain, did she pass out, is there blood – you haven't seen a head or anything have you?"

"That's disgusting," Norah informed her. "Do you have to be so gross? Ugh…"

Mary wanted to tell her that it was going to get a hell of a lot grosser if she didn't hurry up with the particulars, but fortunately, she didn't have to.

"She said her water broke. I don't know what that means, but in the movies when that happens, the woman always jumps in the car and goes to the hospital right away. She said she could drive if she had to, but…"

"No-no-no-no…" Mary cut her off right there, not one for acting nobly, but knowing she was going to have to in this case. "Tell her to stay put – you too. I'll come over there and I'll take her."

"You?"

"Yes, me," her mother answered, slightly irritated by the surprise in her tone. "Listen; don't go making a big production out of this, okay? Talk to Jill, keep her calm. Does she seem all right?"

"She seems nervous," Norah claimed. "Does that mean I should be nervous too?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

"Kind of…" shaky laughter erupted.

"Well, keep it together. It won't take me long to get there."

"Okay."

"All righty then."

X

For as many times as she'd been in it over the last three months, Mary still was not used to Mark's monstrosity of a house. In spite of the towering two levels, the manicured lawn, the cul-de-sac full of kids on bikes, and the elementary school a hundred feet away, she still expected to see his tiny one-story when she walked through the front door. But no, the inside was just as extravagant as the outside – shiny hardwood floors, winding staircase, cathedral ceilings, a kitchen with stainless steel everything, and plush living room couches. Only the smattering of packing boxes littering the nearby office and dining room marred the picturesque quality.

Trying to forget about the fact that a living, breathing, crying, needy baby was soon going to be occupying this vast space in a room upstairs, Mary shut the door behind her and found she was anticipating Jill and Norah waiting to greet her. Far from, they were nowhere in sight, and Mary sincerely hoped Mark had not come home in the middle of things and they'd dashed off to the hospital without telling her.

"Hello?!" she called, her voice echoing impressively, which only made her roll her eyes.

"In here!" came the answering yell, which belonged to Norah.

Pocketing her keys, Mary strode across the floor to find both Jill and her daughter in the living room, the wall-mounted television silent and black as sun streamed in through the high windows. Much to her relief, there was no dread written in either of their faces, no panting and moaning and groaning or anything of the kind. Jill did indeed look a little anxious, as did Norah, but both were standing up, which seemed to be a good sign. Jill even managed a smile, although it was weak and obligatory.

"Hi…" she trembled, hands moving from her round belly to her back.

"Hey…" Mary reciprocated. To Norah, "Hi, Bug."

"Hi."

Expending so much time on pleasantries seemed silly. This was awkward enough without sitting around waiting for a bomb to drop or, in Jill's case, a particularly brutal contraction.

"Are we ready to go?" taking control seemed to be the best option. "Either one of you get a hold of Mark?"

"Not yet…" Jill gulped and, for the first time, her eyes showed signs of wetness. "But, he said he'd be done around four, so…"

"I can have Marshall track him and speed things up."

"Okay…"

"Sure."

"Norah, would you run upstairs and get my bag, please? It's on the floor of the closet in the bedroom…" a hand went to her forehead to push her bangs out of her eyes, and Mary saw beads of sweat dripping there. "I…I'm sorry; I'm stupid, I should've thought of that before you got here…"

"Never mind…" Mary waved an errant hand to absolve her, and then encouraged her daughter to pick up the pace. "Get moving – let's go!"

Without a word, the thirteen year old dashed from the room and they could hear her thundering all the way up the carpeted steps out in the hall. Her disappearance seemed to be some kind of cue for Jill, who sunk down on the sofa with her knees all-but knocking together. Deep, rattling breaths issued from somewhere in her chest, but Mary knew this was not a labor technique – it was nerves.

The coffee table was glass and far too ritzy for the Mark she knew; it might shatter if she sat on it, but she did it anyway.

"I'm so sorry…" Jill launched in before Mary could get there, all her words tumbling and running together in a great rush. "I'm so sorry you had to come all the way over here and deal with this; I'm so embarrassed…"

"Forget it; I don't care," the other said, not sensitively, but sincerely. "And, forget thinking that Mark isn't going to make it; Marshall will have him flagged down in five minutes and he'll probably beat us to the hospital…"

"Right…"

"Are you really okay?" she initiated, her eyes grave and willing her not to fib. "It's all right if you're not, you know," taking a leaf out of Marshall's book with this one. "I was in way worse shape than you are now when I had Norah, just so you know."

A squeaky giggle eked out, but it didn't seem to alleviate her stress in any way. She kept fiddling with her hands and messing in her hair, running her fingers up and down her legs.

"I'll…I'll be better when Mark's here."

"Yeah," she understood the need to have the one you implicitly trusted by your side. "He'll be great; he really will," sharing past memories hadn't been in the cards, but Mary worked best under pressure. "He was a total pro when I went into labor with Norah – didn't faint, didn't throw up – good thing, too, because I would've slugged the shit out of him if he had."

Apparently, her odd brand of comfort was working because Jill's laugh was stronger and more genuine this time. It was the first time Mary had felt nice having Mark in common with her.

"It's gonna kill me, isn't it?" she speculated at random, taking Mary's candidness while she had it. "The pain. I'm gonna want to shoot everyone in sight, aren't I?"

"Yeah, you will, but you won't," the inspector shrugged. "Get the drugs – they're to die for. I was blessed to have them with Alice, but not with Norah. She came too fast."

"Oh, God…if that happens to me…"

"It won't," Mary insisted even though she knew nothing about it. "And, one way or another, you'll make it through – just remember that. All broads get there in the end."

When Jill looked at her in that moment, it struck Mary that she wasn't seeing her just as Norah's mom or as some snarky lady she had to make nice with every three or four days. She looked at her as a fellow woman, as a mother, and even – shockingly enough – as a friend. Mary surprised herself by finding that she enjoyed it, swapping stories and passing along insight like this. They had come so far.

"And, if Mark breaks out in a cold sweat or something, give him a smack from me, okay?"

Jill nodded and grinned awfully good-naturedly for a person about to birth a human being.

"Okay."

X

Five months earlier, when Mary had learned of Jill's pregnancy, she had not envisioned herself practically holding vigil in the hospital waiting room, taking up more than her share of the couch. By herself, it felt more than a little strange – she, the ex-wife, the one nail-biting individual to receive the first word of Baby Stuber's arrival? It wasn't right, and bordered on intrusive.

And yet, when Marshall arrived, Alice in tow, there was suddenly no doubt in her mind that this was where she belonged. Why his presence affected her so, made her certain that they should be part of the reception committee, was a mystery. All she knew was that they always did these things together, and if she was going to be a fixture at all, she wasn't going to be one by her lonesome.

"How's she doing?" Marshall huffed, as though he had been on pins and needles for a verdict; more likely was that Alice had been urging him up the elevator and his only option was to run.

Mary held up all the fingers on her right hand from where she was slumped on the couch with a magazine across her chest.

"Five centimeters. No meds yet – too early. Contractions are seven minutes apart."

It struck her suddenly how much she sounded like he usually did, spewing information on command like a walking encyclopedia. Oh, well. There were far worse people to embody.

Marshall let out a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair, "Sounds like it's still gonna be awhile. Should we maybe go home?"

"No!" Alice shrieked from below, yanking on his hand like she was trying to pull him to the floor. "We haven't seen the baby yet! We can't go _home!_ "

"We can't go home," Mary reverberated dully, head lolling to one side. "Norah's here, and she's set on staying – I'm gonna stay with her."

It was funny, how she was the one who had promised to be present for this endeavor now that her daughter wanted to be in the thick of it, but she had sworn nothing on behalf of her husband and younger daughter. Still, she spoke in terms of 'we' because she knew without asking that if her decision was to hang around, theirs would be too. They were one.

"Then that's that, isn't it?" Marshall observed, and Mary was not shocked to see that he suddenly looked eager at the prospects even though the main event was hours and hours away. "Hunkering down for the long haul. Excellent, yes. Brings back many memories…"

"Save them for later," his wife put up a hand in his face, not in the mood for shedding tears just yet. "We're going to need something to tide us over if we're gonna be stuck in here all night." Turning to the brunette, "Alice, there's a vending machine down the hall. You want a snack?"

"Yeah!"

"She just had ice cream…"

Mary ignored his stipulations and pulled three wrinkled one-dollar bills out of her pocket, handing them into Alice's grubby palm. The appearance of such riches was clearly thrilling; her eyes bugged in her porcelain face like she'd just won the lottery.

"You can have _one_ snack…" Mary waved an admonitory finger. "Get whatever you want, and buy me a bag of those cheddar and bacon baked potato chips, you hear?"

"What about the other dollar?"

"Pick something out for Norah."

"What about daddy?"

"He's a stickler for health; he doesn't need junk food."

Marshall smirked at the backhanded insult, but didn't insist his little girl purchase him anything, instead waving her forward even in spite of her earlier afternoon treat.

"Stay quiet, Big Al, okay? And, come right back."

"Okay…"

The way she ran off at once, her little behind shaking back and forth in her pink sweatpants, elicited a chuckle from the man as he sat down at his partner's side on the sofa. This was probably her prompt to sit in a more ladylike fashion, and she ceased her slouch and allowed her legs to dangle over the side. She'd been at the hospital for a longer period and had been growing drowsy; adjusting her top and smoothing her hair, she tried to reawaken because she knew Alice wasn't going to lounge around and nap.

"If you aren't careful, Alice is going to want to start coming here for vacations," Marshall informed her, hands folded in his lap. "Free food and magazines with mazes in them…"

"No one in their right mind would enjoy being in a hospital," she argued. "If you think the baby fever is going to make her forget her appendix experience, you're crazy."

"Could be…" he wasn't up for a fight. "You mentioned Norah…" he glanced around, like he was expecting the girl to appear at his will. "What has become of her, exactly?"

"When we first got here, Mark was still on his way, and so I kind of had to field the forms and the wheelchair and the trio of Nurse Ratchets…"

"Quite lovely of you."

"Necessary, more like," she contradicted. "Anyway, it didn't last long. He got here a little while ago, but Norah's been out here on the phone with Robyn, so this has been her first chance to see Mark. She's in the room with him and Jill…"

"My goodness, heading for the end zone already, is she?" Marshall was awed by his step-daughter's maturity, she could tell, but also apprehensive. "You never know what she might find back there. I would hate for her to be soured on motherhood so early in life."

"For Christ sakes; she's not a labor coach and she sure as hell isn't an OBGYN," the woman reminded him. "Standing around and shooting the breeze for five minutes isn't going to have her viewing anything she can't deal with."

"That's good to know…" he was inspired by her faith and wiggled himself a few inches closer to his partner so that their hips brushed on the hard, uncomfortable couch. "But, is she going to be sporting the tense, edgy, tart aura you are currently exhibiting?"

Mary hacked like she had something in her throat, " _Aura?_ "

"Characteristic. Quality. Manner. Behavior…"

"I _know_ what it means, doofus," her teeth were clenched, though she wished to shirk her rigidity as much as he hoped she would. "But, the next time I catch you talking about me like a fortune teller…"

"Now, there is a way to pass the time! Palm reading! I'll bet Brandi knows a thing or two about that…"

" _Brandi?_ " she scoffed derisively, craning her neck back to look at him quizzically. "Who said anything about Brandi? She's not coming down for this manifestation of life…"

"Fancy…"

"She isn't. This isn't a play…"

"Maybe not, but I think you're kidding yourself if you really believe she won't be paying us a visit soon," his grin was astute and devious. "Especially since Norah told Robyn. Mark my words, the Alperts will be here with bells on in an hour's time. I'll set my watch…"

"Good God…" Mary groaned, burying her face in her hands, because she knew Marshall was right.

"Hey, we're in this together, aren't we?" he said cheerfully, patting her back with her head still hanging.

"Together," she resonated with her forehead on her knees.

X

"Bet you two Oreos it's a girl."

"Trade you six M&M's for one Oreo and I say it's a girl too."

"Nuh-uh. Boy. Bet you nine Skittles."

"What flavor?"

"Lemon."

"Raw deal. Strawberry, then we're in business."

"Fine. Nine strawberry Skittles for your two Oreos, plus Alice's pretzels, since she thinks it's a girl too."

"You're gonna be the big loser here, Max. Not one single person thinks it's a boy, not even Jill. You should just cough up your candy now."

"Save me the cookies," the young man taunted his big sister. "And Norah's M&M's. Put them in the bowl."

There was an ancient glass bowl sitting on the crappy coffee table that Mary suspected had once upon a time been an ashtray. Now, it was being used as a holding cell for all the food the kids were wagering, trying to while away the hours guessing the baby's gender. As instructed, Robyn put in her share along with everyone else's. Mary could only assume that if Max was wrong, the girls would split the bounty between them; he would hold all the loot if baby Stuber turned out to be male.

"What do you think, mom?" Max turned from his spot on the floor beside his sister and cousins to address Brandi. "Do you think it's a boy or a girl?"

"Hmm…" Brandi twirled a strand of her hair absently, eyes straying to her cell phone on the table, which she had already perused several hundred times. "I don't know, sweetie. I'm not the best judge on this sort of thing. I never could decide what I thought you and Robyn were when I was pregnant…"

"But, just guess. I want to know."

When forced, Brandi would always spill, "I may have to side with the ladies on this one," she rumpled his sandy hair affectionately as a means to make up for her affiliation. "I see Mark with a girl."

Max moaned, and far louder than he would have a few months earlier, while the girls gave a silent cheer and traded superior glances.

"Don't get too cocky, misses," Marshall warned them from where he was curled up with Mary on the sofa, legs tucked under her. "It's a fifty-fifty chance no matter how you slice it. Don't give up hope, Max. Go with your gut."

"Yeah…" he sighed dispiritedly. "But, I know you think it's a girl too. I heard you say it months ago."

"My opinion means nothing."

"Since when?"

Mary had to laugh at this; it was so quick and clever of her nephew and sounded like something she herself would say. The noise alerted him to her presence, the one person he had yet to interrogate when it came to the child's sex.

"It's gonna be a girl, isn't it, Mary?" he didn't even really ask, but was already resigned to his fate as the sole male in their very mixed up family. "It totally is…"

His aunt wanted to lie, wanted to say that she had the same hunch that he did. And, truthfully, it would've been nice to have another Max around; she wouldn't mind a boy in the least; it would shake things up. But, try as she might, she echoed everyone else's sentiments. Maybe it was because Mark already had a daughter, maybe it was because she forever pictured Norah in competition with a younger version of herself, but all she saw was a female when she envisioned her ex's future life, bumbling through fatherhood, part two.

"We'll have to wait and see…" was all she would assign herself to. "But, think of it this way. Whatever it is, it's not changing now. If it's a boy, it was a boy nine months ago – same with a girl."

"Yeah-yeah…"

Left alone with his thoughts, Max left the treat bowl sitting in its place of honor among the outdated magazines and went to join his sister and cousins. They seemed to be doing a crossword in one of the reading periodicals, although there was no telling how old it was. One child did not stay behind with the group, however, but crawled across the ground to her parents, blue eyes on tenterhooks and throbbing for information.

"How long does it take to have a baby?" Alice queried, no doubt noticing that it was starting to grow dark outside, meaning they had been in attendance at the hospital for quite awhile.

"Hours," Mary replied vaguely. "Sometimes days."

" _Days?_ "

"Yeah. You took the better part of twenty-four hours. That's a full day."

"What about Norah? Did she take that long?"

"Hard to say with her," Marshall chimed in. "When she was on her way, she kept quiet for awhile, biding her time, giving mom a break…"

"If that's what you want to call it…"

"But, boy, when she was ready, she was rocking and rolling. She was born three hours after mom got to the hospital."

"Three hours is a really long time," Alice remarked.

"It's all in how you look at it," her father declared. "Babies tend to want to take their time – aren't in much of a hurry. There are always exceptions, of course."

"It is endless and over so fast all at the same time," Mary alleged, knowing it was a hazy explanation, but also the best way she could describe it. "You think you're never going to see the kid, and then you blink and they're…" She gestured up and down Alice's form, "Well, your age."

"Hard to believe we were ever the major players in this stadium, isn't it?" Marshall was as metaphorical as always, his head rotating around to take in all the sights, drinking them in. Focusing back on his wife with tender eyes, "But, we were, weren't we, partner?"

Mary remembered a drizzling afternoon with Jinx, an infinite night pacing her house while contractions doubled her over, trying to hide her pain from Norah in the morning, and rushing off to the hospital the minute she left for school. Visits from her mother, Marshall's hand in hers, his perfect murmurings of support, and the squeal of a baby girl ran through her mind in a jumbled, discombobulated blur.

"We were the MVP's, I would say," she concluded.

Marshall seemed to like that idea, because he kissed her temple in praise.

"We sure were."

X

Darkness penetrated the waiting room. Streetlamps and headlights flashed against the windowpanes every now and again. Dinner had been hamburgers and chicken sandwiches and French fries brought by Joanna, who was calmly reading a magazine in one of the chairs. The remnants of supper littered the coffee table, and Mary knew one of them should get up and throw the trash away, but no one seemed interested in moving. Marshall was stretched out on the sofa, his long legs taking up the entire space, and Mary was practically in his lap, the back of her head against his chest as she fiddled on her phone.

Alice was hanging upside-down on the opposite couch so her head almost touched the floor. It seemed she'd exhausted every other waiting option. Max was drawing a picture on the floor while Brandi dozed in another chair. Norah and Robyn had gone off somewhere with many words of warning from those in charge to not get lost or make too much noise. Mary did not know where they had ventured to, but her niece had said something about a cute boy.

"We haven't had an update in awhile," Mary said to her husband. "You think everything's okay?"

"I'm sure it is," he told her. "Busy time for them – don't want to be bothered going to-and-fro."

"I guess."

"They have spent quite a lot of time in the hospital, though. We were pretty selective when Alice decided it was time to make her appearance. We were at home the entire night."

"Who wants to deal with a bunch of quacks and IV needles and monitors if you don't have to?"

"Well, I imagine Jill's water breaking got her first-rate admittance, but I do see your point."

Thinking back to the time Marshall had referenced, a November over seven years ago, it was the first time Mary did not feel like she was looking into someone else's life, that the instance had happened so long ago it almost felt like it hadn't happened at all. On this occasion, she could pull forth the details like it had occurred yesterday. Maybe it was being so close to birth right now, but Alice's arrival suddenly stood out clear as day in her mind – especially the infinite number of hours before they'd packed their bags and climbed in the car.

"Jesus. That was such a long night," Mary blurted out, feeling Marshall twirl a single strand of her hair around his finger.

"What? When Alice was born?"

"Yeah, when we were at home," she helped him out. "You begged me to try and sleep and I couldn't."

"Not a wink."

"You were quite the gentleman, though," it wasn't often she paid him such a raw compliment, but now felt like a good time for one. "So sweet."

"Well, thank-you," he bowed his head behind her. "I like to think, as a mere spectator, that I did the most admirable job possible, as you were the one who had to do the grunt work."

"You bet your ass I did."

 _Mary wasn't used to her home without lights on. It was normally so full of screaming children in the afternoon hours that every surface was illuminated lest someone trip or fall or lose something important. But now, at a quarter till three in the morning, the only light she could stand was a lamp on the end table. Every other bulb was extinguished because they gave her a gut-wrenching headache that made her feel like she was going to vomit from the glare. Like vomiting already didn't seem all-too easy._

 _Pacing her living room floor with her hands on her lower back, her belly becoming more and more weighted by the second, she tried to brace herself for the next contraction. They'd been getting stronger and closer together, which was both encouraging as well as frightening. The length of time she'd already spent staving them off was befuddling to her. Norah had been popped, cleaned up, dressed, and resting comfortably in the NICU by this time, but here was her second daughter, unable to budge._

 _Marshall was almost asleep standing up against the wall, his eyes fluttering open and shut – until Mary groaned, and then it was like a bell had started clanging against his skull._

" _Oh, shit…"_

 _Heat waves radiated through her back to the point where she felt like her entire spine was burning and inflexible all at the same time; it caused her to bend over onto her knees, which was new, and entirely unwelcome. She needed to walk; to remain upright in order to keep the pain manageable, but suddenly found she couldn't stand up. Her thighs began to tremble so they felt like they couldn't hold her. Her belly tightened so violently and so quickly she didn't have time to prepare herself; pain exploded like firecrackers in her midsection and she forgot all about how she was supposed to breathe and stay tranquil. She'd been doing so well, and now all of that vanished to make way for fear of the unknown. It was getting worse._

" _Come here…come here…" Marshall rushed over as though he had not been half-asleep and tried to help her stand, knowing this was her preferred method. "Start walking; you'll feel better…"_

" _I can't…" she gasped throatily, clutching her stomach and squeezing her eyes shut. "I can't; I don't want to anymore…"_

 _That wasn't entirely true, but between the ache in her belly and the ache in her back, the one in her back had suddenly intensified tenfold and crouching was the only way to alleviate it._

 _"Do you want to sit down?"_

" _No…"_

 _Big, fat, messy tears spilled from her eyelids without warning; she did not know where they had come from and they distracted her to the point where she could not inhale and exhale at all. Giving up for this round, her hands found the coffee table and rested there. Marshall rubbed her back gently, first up high and then down low, while all she did was weep, humiliating herself, as she had managed not to cry until now. She couldn't throw in the towel; she wasn't anywhere close to being done._

" _It's okay…" Marshall murmured as though he were reading her mind and could sense her mortification over losing her cool. "It's okay; you're doing fine…"_

" _I'm tired…" Mary managed pathetically once she was able to speak._

" _I know…" two words were so sympathetic coming from him, laced with compassion as he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "I wish there was something else I could do."_

" _You're doing everything," she blubbered._

" _Far from."_

" _As long as you're here, you're doing everything."_

 _With the contraction having abated, she was able to cautiously stand up again, and all her limbs felt like rubber, her cheeks now sticky and wet with tears. Marshall reached over and sweetly wiped them away with his index finger, pushing her hair behind her ears, never once mentioning that their presence were a sign of more vicious things to come._

" _Well, I am here," he promised. "I have no plans to go anywhere unless you say the word."_

" _I'm not going to say that," she assured him. "You deserve a break, though…"_

 _He tried to float a joke, "A break? Me? I think not. I could go all night…"_

" _Like a warrior or something, huh?"_

" _Oh, no…" he breathed sensually, slinking even closer and pulling her into his side where he could plant yet another kiss on her cheek. "I am not the warrior around here, partner."_

Mary's cell phone went off in her lap and startled her out of her reverie. It seemed to have awakened Marshall as well, because he jumped from where he was positioned behind her. The woman had a hunch they'd both been lost in the same seven-year-old evening, even if neither one of them mentioned it.

But, in the present, there was another life to consider, and when Mark's name flashed at her on the screen, she knew her hankering for an update was going to be fulfilled.

"Hey…"

"Hi," Mark was breathless and harried and there was a lot of noise in the background – talking, moving, clanking. "I…I just wanted to give you a head's up because I'm not going to be able to leave the room and I only have a minute…"

"What's going on?"

"Jill's at ten centimeters; she's getting ready to push."

Mary's reaction was automatic; she didn't consider it at all, and she found she liked it that way, because her response was to smile.

"Really?"

"Yeah…"

"Okay, well…thanks…" she couldn't think of what else to say, finding that her unexpected excitement was taking over. "You should probably get going, then…"

"I…I will…"

He didn't seem to be going anywhere, though; she could still hear his ragged breathing through the speaker, and all at once she realized what was keeping him. He was right in the trenches and now, when he had to climb the tallest tree to get out after being trapped in the jungle for eons, he didn't want to begin the trek. He was scared. Mary found it oddly endearing, on this side of things.

"You'll be okay…" her voice was as placid as she knew how to make it. "You'll be fine – both of you will. Remember, Jill's the one in the undertow; all you have to do is keep pulling her to shore."

"How romantic," Marshall whispered in her ear.

"I…I'm just…my mind is all mixed up; I want to help and I feel like I'm not doing anything and I can't believe after all this time…"

"Calm down…" she cautioned. "This isn't brand new. You've done this before, remember?"

"Yeah…I-I know…"

"And, you were great. You were really good to me when I had Norah; I was glad you were there…"

"Please…" he was disbelieving. "I was an amateur. I'm no Marshall."

"Well…" Mary snickered with a chuckle on the end. "If you're aiming that high, we're gonna be here an awfully long time."

X

The waiting was different now. It sang a different song, cast a different atmosphere over the entire space as the clock worked its way toward midnight and they all wondered if the child's birthday would be April eighth or ninth. What had for so many hours been a sense of lethargy had transformed into silent strain. Nobody spoke, although many of them moved. Even Alice seemed to sense that she should be quiet, a rare feat in and of itself.

Mary wanted to open her mouth and say that all the dramatics were unnecessary. Babies were born every day; they didn't need to act like the sky was falling or that everything in their lives hinged on this moment. But, she knew it would be wasted energy.

Marshall played with his phone, but didn't make any calls or type any texts. Brandi twirled her hair so fanatically it was going to be wound into a knot before long, with Robyn examining split ends beside her. Joanna sighed every few minutes and crossed and uncrossed her legs at the same time. Alice and Max played rock-paper-scissors with the minimalist amount of talking between them; both glanced up every few minutes as though expecting the baby to wander out on its own two feet and wave hello.

Mary and Norah couldn't sit still. Norah wrung her hands and shifted from the edge of the coffee table to the arm of the couch to the end of the hallway so many times that it made her mother dizzy. The inspector herself could only pace. It put her strongly in mind of the memories she had already traded with Marshall of her own labor, and it felt like she was making progress by moving her feet.

On Norah's third trip to the edge of the hall, the point she had not crossed since her initial visit with Mark, Mary called her back, tired of seeing her work herself into a bind over something she had no control over.

"Bug, come back over here…" she waved her hand and Norah obeyed. "Sit down. Relax. We could still be twiddling our thumbs an hour from now…"

"I don't want to sit," she insisted adamantly. "Besides, you're not."

"I know, but I think this thing is like a watched pot…"

"Look, you said at 10:45 when Robyn and I came back from the cafeteria that Jill was getting close…" the blonde had chosen not to use the technical terms with her teenager. "Well, were you lying? Was she not as close as you made it sound like?"

"It's just…it's hit or miss on things like this…" she fabricated clumsily. "It's like I told Alice – she took all night and most of the morning, you were out in a single afternoon…"

"But, we've been here forever. It can't really be that much longer, can it?"

"I don't know…" Mary placed a hand on her shoulder. "I just think that lingering around like you are is only going to make you crazy when…"

But, her advice soon became moot and was sucked up in a single breath when Marshall immediately sat up on the sofa, pointing his finger like a sailor spotting land for the first time in six months. Norah saw him first, and peered around Mary's frame to see just what the sudden discovery was, causing her mother to turn around as well.

"Hey-hey…looks like we might have something…" Marshall announced, and Mary saw at once to what he was referring.

Mark was jogging up the hall, all decked out in a pair of blue scrubs, a surgical mask dangling around his neck like he'd just been performing an operation. He looked so official that it was almost comical; it was as though he were a little boy dressing as a doctor on Halloween. For some reason, Mary could never quite get the image out of her head that this man who she loved was nothing but a child – if an adorable, kind one. If anything, on today of all days, she should be seeing him for the adult he was and had been for a long time.

"That's Mark!" Robyn made them all aware when she peered over the back of the sofa with Brandi copying her movements. "Mark, did Jill have the baby?!" she bellowed for the whole floor to hear, which made her mother scold her with a shushing.

He was too far away to answer properly, though he didn't slow his pace, and Mary could feel her heart beginning to quicken its speed. Part of her wanted to shout out as well, to demand to hear the news, because patience never came easily to her. Instead, she tightened her grip on Norah's shoulder, and distinctly saw her swallow hard. She'd been sitting stagnant for the entire day, just waiting for a scrap of information, and now that they were nearly in the clear, she was balking.

Mary could practically see all of her daughter's old feelings of inferiority and resentment and being second best manifesting themselves in her features. The idea of a baby was one thing – an actual baby was quite another. She squeezed her shoulder even harder.

Marshall was on his feet and so were Max and Alice, scrambling up from the linoleum, Joanna discarding the magazine she'd had in her lap.

"Let's go see!" Alice suggested, about to break into a run. "It's a girl, it's a girl; I know it's a girl!"

"I'll go with you!" Robyn volunteered at once, taking her cousin by the hand. "I want to know her name!"

They were in the midst of taking off, leaving everyone else behind, but Brandi reached out and snagged both their collars, holding them back before they could be at the waterfront to meet the boat first.

"Hang on…"

"Why?"

"Mark, come on; hurry up!"

But, Mary understood, and one shared glance with Marshall told her that he did too. They were in this together, yes, but when it came down to it, this epic did not really belong to them. There was family, and then there was family, and she knew without uttering a single word that Robyn and Alice should not be the ones to greet the new father.

"Norah, go ahead…" she urged, giving her daughter a push. "Go see him; go see what he has to say. We'll be here."

She thought it might take her a minute to register, to get her legs working enough so that they could surge forth, but she didn't need to be told twice. Now that Robyn and Alice had been stalled, she took the opportunity in two hands and ran out to hail Mark down before he could become overwhelmed by the legion of people waiting for him among stiff couches and crappy, colored-on books.

It had been what felt like years since she'd truly seen Norah run at a full sprint, and watching her now made her think of her more youthful years – red sneakers, baseball jerseys, matted hair, pumping her legs so hard they might fall off, very nearly flailing her arms, forgoing dignity to get where she was going just a little bit faster. It wasn't Mark who suddenly seemed so childlike anymore, but Norah, and it wasn't such a bad thing.

Marshall stepped over to his wife and put his arm around her back, the pair of them witnessing the girl at a distance as though it were a miraculous exhibit in a zoo.

"Good call, mom," he decreed, underlining her notion to let Norah have the first taste of what their new life was going to become.

Mary didn't comment, but instead inclined her head forward, "Look…she's there."

The duo had met at the periphery of the wide expanse in front of them, too distant to hear, but close enough to read the expressions on their faces. Joanna had gone along as well, which Mary thought was only right, and she knew she and Marshall were not the only ones gawking. Brandi, Robyn, Max, and Alice were all frozen in their spots, staring almost obscenely, trying to gauge just from moving lips and hand gestures what the outcome was going to be.

Mary willed herself not to blink, her man's hand pressing into her back, and she saw Mark begin to chatter a mile a minute, arms flying in several directions, gaze leaping from his daughter to his mother at warp speed. His face was split into a cheesy, tipsy smile so that it lit up his entire body, from the tip of his head to the toes on his feet. And, though Joanna and Norah had their backs to the group, Mary noticed the older woman put a hand to her mouth and then pull her son into her arms. He was laughing now, accepting the embrace, before he wiggled himself out of it to look down at Norah.

His motor mouth took pause and his big brown eyes fluttered. A hand went to each of her shoulders so he was holding her with him, forcing her to face what had been promised for the last nine months. And, in seconds, his stupid grin broke into a hearty laugh and he had swept Norah up against him, pressing her hard and fast into his chest, kissing the top of her head and holding her so tightly she was likely to suffocate.

Mary unexpectedly felt tears spring to her eyes, and she gulped to try and shove them back inside. But, with the dampness came a weak, watery smile; when she averted her gaze to Marshall, she saw that his face was nearly identical to hers.

"I think we have a baby," he whispered. "What about you?"

"Yeah, it looks that way…" her voice was oddly constricted.

"Seems like yesterday that was me…" he motioned at Mark's reddened cheeks and his dopey giggle. "Finding out you're a dad. There's no other feeling like it in the whole world."

"It's nice seeing him like that…" the blonde decided. "All chaotic and confused and trying to figure out which end is up, but all over the moon at the same time. Babies do the weirdest things to people…"

"Can turn anyone into a doddering old fool."

"Well, if he's any indication…"

But, the reunion between father and daughter appeared to have come to an end, and Mark must've given Norah the green light to scream his news from the rooftops – an admirable bequest. He stayed behind with Joanna, still babbling like he'd had about ten drinks, and Norah came running back to the fold. Her face was all joy and reprieve and unrestrained exhilaration. Mary knew if you told her five months ago she'd be this thrilled with the new arrival, she'd have said you were out of your mind.

But, she welcomed the change, and at her appearance, Robyn and Alice blasted off like bullhorns.

"Is it a girl?! Is it a girl?! What is it?!"

"It's a girl – it has to be a girl!"

"It is a girl, isn't it?!"

"It's not!"

Norah's voice drowned out the rest as it came flying out of her chest, breathless and tingling, and before Mary could absorb the negation, the rest was streamed high into the open air.

"It's not a girl – it's a boy!"

Gasps and yelps of shock and awe erupted into the room – even Mary was surprised, though her reaction was certainly understated compared to the kids'. Alice bawled, "No way, no way, no way!" over and over, dancing on the spot like she might take off and fly at any second. Robyn's mouth hung open, but she got it together enough to throw her arms around Norah just like the sixth grade girl she was, as though they were the ones who had created life this brisk spring evening.

Max was as Mary had never seen him before – he screamed and flung his hands in the air, not before scooping up the entire bowl of treats from the coffee table and stuffing two Oreos in his mouth whole.

"I knew it! I told you! I knew it was a boy!" he shouted between mouthfuls, spewing crumbs everywhere in his gusto. "I win!"

Brandi, charmed by his delight, hugged him hard and then leaned over to peck a kiss on Norah's hair.

In all the disarray, the two Marshals stood mostly silent, drinking in the scene, content to be bystanders than to be in the fray. At work, they were the first ones on the frontline, but here, they hovered at the edges, the captive audience enjoying the magic as it unfolded.

In truth, Mary did not know what she would've said had she been expected to contribute right away, but she was about to be given the opportunity. Mark was rejoining the gang, holding Joanna's hand, which meant that he received a flurry of smooches from Brandi and Robyn and Alice hanging off his legs to bleat their excitement, girl or no girl. This meant that Norah was able to pry herself from the action and wander up to the two individuals she probably wanted to confide in most of all – those she never had to hide from or put on a mask for.

But, the mother could tell just by looking at her that there was no façade to be had. Her glee had been real, rampant and impulsive and all-consuming. And, suddenly, she knew what it was she wanted to say.

"Lucky guy, this boy…" her hand made a fist and Norah pounded it without hesitation. "Having a boss sister like you."

"Very lucky," Marshall echoed. "Wonderful news, Norah. You seem excited…"

"I am…I guess…" she laughed drunkenly. "I don't know. I want to see him – dad says he looks like me."

"Well, I'll be," Marshall took a more refined approach and shook her hand rather than high-fived or hugged her. "Then he must be quite the stunning fellow."

"I was so sure it was a girl," Norah confessed. "Everyone was."

"Life is full of surprises," Marshall told her.

"I don't know what it's like to have a brother. I can't treat him like Alice…"

"You'll pick it up," the man proclaimed. "You're a smart girl."

She grinned at the compliment, obviously unsure what to do with herself amidst all the hoopla, but fortunately, Mark gave her the chance to slink away. Disentangling himself from the boisterous reception, he made his way over to Mary and Marshall, where Marshall offered up his wholehearted congratulations complete with handshakes and a one-armed embrace. Mark appeared too dazed to take any of it in – until he came face-to-face with Mary.

She knew what the appropriate phrases were, and yet they seemed like such a cliché. She'd known Mark almost her entire life – much longer than Marshall. To think of him beginning this chapter all over again was disorienting and baffling, and also fantastic on some other level. Once upon a time, they'd become parents together; she'd had her chance to do it without him, and now he had the same. Still, the way they'd learned had been with each other – aimless and blind and sleep hungry and dizzied. There was solidarity in that.

"Congratulations…" her voice came out soft and sweet, and her hug was much the same, gripping him with both hands and her chin over his shoulder. "A son. It's…mind-blowing."

"I'll say it is," he laughed and stepped back to look at her again.

"Well, if he's anything like you, he'll be a hellion and a sweetheart and I won't have a clue what to do with him."

"Thanks…" he chortled. "I think."

"What's his name? Does he have one?"

"He does. Cody. Cody John Stuber."

There didn't need to be a justification, but he gave one anyway.

"John was my dad's name."

If there was anyone who knew about ties to one's father, it was Mary.

"That's great," she stated plainly. "I'm sure he's gorgeous. You should be proud, Mark."

"I am…" for once, they agreed. "I really am."

X

 _Marshall stood outside the NICU, ogling unattractively at the woman inside, surrounded by dim bulbs and incubators with tiny babies resting inside them. It was like they were separated by two universes here. He was in the safe one – outside, in the light, protected from uncertainty and disappointment and haranguing worry. He was all stimulation and anticipation, so much so that his fingers were twitching and he had to tell himself not to overdo it._

 _Because, not all worlds were safe. The one behind the glass was a battlefield, full of the figurative gunfire and land mines and blood turning the green grass to a deep crimson. In there, you could never be sure what would come next; you had no wrest on the future and even no control on the present. You relied on yourself and yourself alone, and it was the most isolated feeling you could have, especially when you'd been poised to cross the victory line and take a plane home._

 _So, Marshall remained in his sanctuary only a minute longer, because he could not allow his best friend to lie gushing on the ground when he, the infantry, could easily run in and drag her to shelter. He could mop her wounds and wrap them in bandages and, while she might not necessarily be healed, she would be okay. She could solider on._

 _Pushing the door open, Marshall let himself be enveloped by the hush of darkness and the chunk-chunk-chunk sound of the beating machines. Other than them, the air was silent. A beep penetrated every now and then, but the babies lay still and sleepy, relying on rest and tender, wise hands to nurse them into health._

 _One step at a time, he approached the chair where his partner sat stationed, an enormous billowy gown resembling a tent on her still-paunchy frame. Though her face was less moon-shaped, it was streaked top to bottom with tears, leaving tiny railroad tracks on her cheeks. She bit her lip to stop it from quivering, her hands clenching her gown in her lap._

 _Nearby, there was a second chair, and he dragged it over to place it next to hers. If she knew he was there, she gave no sign, only continued to stare at the little girl snoozing behind the glass in front of her eyes._

" _Mare, what's wrong?"_

 _He didn't expect an answer right away, and he didn't get one. He got a shuddering sob that caused a few more tears to fall, but she swept them away this time now that there was someone to watch her._

" _Is she okay?" he dipped his chin to try and see her face more clearly, referring to the child that lay before them. "What have they said?"_

 _Mary nodded and her words came in jumbled chunks, "She…they said…she should be fine…" she confessed, but not as though it brought her any comfort. "She needs to get warm and…get bigger – gain some weight…"_

" _She's over four pounds," Marshall observed, pointing to the card on the incubator. "For thirty-two weeks, that is a huge accomplishment."_

" _Then, why is she so small still?"_

 _Saying this aloud caused another cascade of tears, which she tried her damndest to hide, covering her face with her hand and turning away from her partner. When she spoke again, her voice was muffled._

" _Why are you here?" it was obvious she longed to be able to veil herself from onlookers and wallow in her misery alone. "How come they even let you in? Can't you go away…?"_

" _I don't want to go away," he wasn't pushy, but absolute. "I wanted to see you – I wanted to see her. Jinx told me what you decided."_

" _That moronic blabbermouth…"_

" _Well, did you think I was never going to find out?" rhetorical questions probably weren't a good idea, here in the warzone, but he couldn't help himself. "I'm proud of you, Mary. This is a big step…"_

" _It isn't anything but stupid…" here, she showed him her face, dulled in the dim lights, making her look pale and washed-out from fear as well as the exhausting task of delivering a baby into the world. "Me thinking I can be a mother? I've lost my marbles…"_

" _You can absolutely do this. You're so intelligent, you're so defensive; you know everything there is to know about taking care of people…"_

" _This isn't the same," she moaned dejectedly. "This isn't a witness, this is my daughter; I can't get in her face and take her by the collar and scream at her if she doesn't do what I want…" And then, the most astounding words of all dribbled out of her mouth, words Marshall knew she would probably wish to take back later. "I need help…"_

 _It was in his nature to seize them, to cling to the opportunity to be more to her than just the dork she shared an office with. When she called, he came – every time._

 _His hand migrated and found her shoulder, which was shaking beneath his palm. What he wanted to do was wrap both arms around her and pull her face against his chest and let her cry as long as she wanted. But, he knew the touch of his fingers was all she would tolerate._

" _I'll help you," he promised soundly._

 _And, to his amazement, she didn't scoff or dismiss him or shrug his hand away. She didn't even roll her eyes. She looked at him like he'd just sworn to her he would pilot her straight to the sun because her little girl needed to be warm, that he would feed her day and night because she needed to grow. Like he was the answer. Like he had taken all her worries and, if not eliminated them, then pulled them into his heart so they became his as well. Theirs._

" _You will?" she whispered._

 _His response was etched in care and deep, flooded concern, "Of course I will."_

" _Because I don't know if I can do this without someone telling me how. She's so tiny; she's fragile; she needs someone and I can't screw it up…"_

" _She has you."_

" _But, I'm not her mom – I'm just some lady that got knocked up."_

" _You_ are _her mom," he clapped her shoulder this time and looked straight into her watery orbs. "And, if what you want is to do right by her, then that is what you will do. This is about choices, and if your choice is to give her the very best of yourself, then nothing is going to stop you…"_

 _He made it sound so easy, so painfully simple, that it was just too hard to believe. Mary still thought it had to be about more than conscious effort – she had to be able to love and sacrifice and put herself second nine times out of ten. It was no longer about her. It was about Norah._

" _I gave her a name," she whispered to her partner._

" _I know…" he nodded again at the card taped to the front of the casing, smiling fondly as he did so. "Norah. It's beautiful."_

" _Like her. Right?"_

" _Now, you know that is something you don't have to ask me."_

" _I had to ask you for help, didn't I?" the snark meant she was feeling better, and Marshall's heart soared._

" _And, I thoroughly enjoyed the invitation. And, to answer your question – yes, she is gorgeous. Like her mother."_

" _Don't be getting fresh with me, Poindexter."_

" _Copy that…"_

"I didn't think we'd ever be here again – staring at a baby through the looking glass, so to speak. I think you described it best earlier. Mind-blowing is what it is."

"Well, it's not like he's our baby. Let's keep things in perspective, here."

"True enough. But, he's gonna be part of us, one way or another, because he's a part of Norah."

"Like I needed you to tell me that."

"I never know what you take in sometimes, inspector…"

"All I know is that he can be a part of us so long as we're not the ones doing the three AM feedings and the changing and the burping."

"Yeah, it is a bit of a bonus to escape that part of it."

"Remind me to rub it in Mark's face later."

"You are shameless, Mary."

Hands pressed to the dividing wall, the woman looked down into the nursery below and at the baby boy wiggling his nose and fighting his blankets in the front row. He had a card exactly like the ones Norah and Alice had boasted at their births, only it read, "It's a boy!" in blue letters rather than, "It's a girl!" in pink ones. It even had the same stork holding the bundle that theirs had possessed. It was nice to know that some things stayed the same.

Cody was, apparently, an ideal size – much bigger than Norah had been, but smaller than both Robyn and Alice at just seven pounds, ten ounces and nineteen inches long. His tag declared that he had indeed arrived before midnight on April eighth at 11:32 PM. At the moment, he looked like he was in the mood for achieving a nice nap, the way he was fidgeting and squinting at the lights, nearly dislodging his blue knit cap.

"So, here you are…" Mary muttered at him, still finding it strange to see him in the here and now. "The latest member of the Shannon circus. You can be the lion tamer."

"Who's on the trapeze?" Marshall was curious about the analogy.

"Robyn. Duh."

"The clown?"

"Alice."

"Ventriloquist?"

"Gotta be Max…"

"Then, who is our ringmaster?"

"Norah, clearly. She's the oldest."

"That she is."

Hearing Mary think about Cody as part of the gang, even in ridiculous terms, couldn't help but boost Marshall's spirits. She, like Norah, had come a long way when it came to acceptance, and he knew without a doubt that she now couldn't envision their future days without the little man in them. The children's reaction to his entrance said they were already prepared to take him under their wings.

"It'd be strange to have a brother or a sister thirteen years younger than you…" she changed tack in the silence. "When Norah's thirty, he won't even be done with high school yet."

"Oh, my…" Marshall breathed theatrically, throwing his head back for effect. "Norah at thirty? Makes me feel ancient. That puts Alice at twenty-four."

"Yikes."

"They could both be married by then and have kids of their own."

"Okay, you're right – let's stop there," Mary put a hand in his face, not realizing what she'd gotten herself into. "Because, you have now graduated the two of us to grandparents, and I'm not busting out any wheelchairs and walkers yet."

He laughed in a jolly way, "I think we're still pretty far off from that stage of life. Especially when you consider those whose lives are just beginning…" he tapped the glass and made eyes at Cody, sticking his tongue between his teeth.

"So, in spite of what you said, this probably _isn't_ the last time we're going to be gaping into a nursery at a kid that feels like our own," she speculated, turning away from the boy to look at the man with a wily glint in her eye. "Huh?"

"Well, I suppose not – not if grandparenthood is on the horizon…"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…" Mary exhaled. "We're gonna be one of those couples with ten little ankle-biters running around our house in our old age, aren't we? It'll be a nightmare…"

"Well, and think of it this way…" he was getting into the spirit of things now. "You add in Robyn and Max, and we'll get to be Great Aunt Mary and Great Uncle Marshall! Won't that be something?"

"What the hell is so 'great' about that?"

"More love to go around…" he offered with a boyish shrug. "Isn't that what we all want? More love?"

"Maybe you do…"

"Don't think you can fool me any longer, my wonderfully wise wife…" piling on the alliteration. "Yes, you were once closed off and guarded and unable to let anyone in even the tiniest smidge – not even yours truly."

"I suppose you're going somewhere with this…"

"Oh, but I am," his professor finger was raised and ready to educate, just like the Marshall she had always known. "It is a badge of honor you have rightfully lost. Only truly healthy, warm, kind, giving individuals could welcome in the child of their ex-husband without a single qualm."

"So, is that what I am now?" Mary was unable to adjust to the idea. "Healthy and _warm_ and _kind_ and _giving_?" the phrases just did not fit who she considered herself to be in the least. "You're on something."

"Gonna have to face it…" he held out his hands, palms up, and his handsome face was exactly the same as Mary remembered it when she'd fallen in love with him so many years ago. "Tragic as it is, I think you grew up to be a good person after all."

A snort escaped because she knew he was teasing her and, for once, she was the one to stand on tiptoe and press her lips to his bristly cheek. His skin glowed a fantastic, glittering pink like he was the be-speckled, gangly kid on the playground being wooed by the fifth grade's most popular girl.

"Shame on you for turning me decent, doofus."

"I'd say it was a job well done, partner."

XXX

 **A/N: The end! Thank-you so much to everyone who has stuck with me through this story – it's all about quality of my reviewers, not the quantity, and you guys are a great bunch. Thanks to BrittanyLS, JJ2008, jekkah, Jayne Leigh, carajiggirl, Adelled, Jojo78, Ares' Warrior Babe, and any and all guests. You guys are awesome. There is no telling if or when I will be back, but I always hope the wheels will keep spinning. Thanks so much for sticking with me.**


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